The Bell House

by Lori Titus

  Melva stirred her coffee. “You said Diana has kids?”

  Jenna nodded. “Diana’s daughter is an adult. I think Raquel is about twenty-four now. She got messed up on drugs when she was a teenager and has never been able to put it down. She has two daughters of her own. Diana is raising them.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Four and five.”

  “Lord, I do remember when her son died,” Melva shivered. “How he and that other boy both got killed.”

  “Diana won’t talk about Ahmad,” Jenna said. “If you go to their house, you won’t see any pictures of him either. It’s been about ten years now.”

  “Well, how does Diana feel about you moving over there?”

  Jenna shrugged. “She’d prefer me to live there instead of selling or renting the place to outsiders. I don’t know how much we’ll talk or be around each other once I get over there, but realistically, I understand she doesn’t want strangers living so close. I need a place to stay. So this is an easy solution.”

  Melva smiled. “Want some more coffee?”

  “Yes,” Jenna said. “I’ll be okay. I need some quiet. And some time.”

  “Are you planning on working again soon? What are you going to do once you get out there?”

  “I’m going to be on leave for a few months,” Jenna said. “I’ll just commute into the city when it’s time for me to go back.”

  What Jenna hadn’t shared with anyone yet was that she had already started putting together the pieces of her book. One afternoon, feeling exhausted and stressed, she’d decided to take a drive. She’d passed near the post office and stopped to pick up her mail from the box she’d rented. The letters were an assortment of bills and junk mail, along with one box. In her car, she carefully opened the package.

  The note inside was written by her cousin, Christopher.

  Dear Jenna,

  I’m so sorry that I was not able to make it out to South Carolina for the memorial.

  I’ve been meaning to send you these, and as luck would have it, I’m glad that I didn’t. They would have been destroyed in the fire along with your other things.

  I have some very old pictures here. Most are from your mama’s side of the family, but there are a few from your father’s. If you look into it, you’ll see that there is some really interesting history there.

  Anyway, I wanted to go ahead and forward these to you. It’s been weighing on me these last few days that you need to have them. So now that they’re safely in your hands, the Ancestors don’t have to scream at me anymore.

  I love you, darling. Give me a call when you feel up to it, and we’ll talk.

  Sincerely,

  Christopher Hill

  JENNA HAD FELT AWFUL admitting it to herself, but she’d been relieved that the package hadn’t included more pictures of Stephen. The pictures were very old indeed, and Christopher had included Post-it Notes with names and dates on some of them.

  Back at the hotel, she’d unwrapped her new treasures carefully.

  The faces were unfamiliar to her, but the names were imprinted in her memory. Helena. Jeremiah. Morgan.

  Her father’s people.

  She’d heard Travis mention Morgan and Helena. From what she’d gathered, Jeremiah had been the black sheep of the family. She’d always been curious about why he seemed to be the outcast, and why her Father avoided speaking about his brother.

  She knew about the ancestors on her mother’s side even though there were many younger cousins that she hadn’t been introduced to.

  One thing she did remember her father saying. Baby, some things are dark, and they are meant to stay in the past where the shadows can let them be.

  There in the hotel room, she’d smiled. Odd, she’d thought, that she would remember that now after so many years.

  She’d taken out her laptop that day and started to make notes. Concentrating on something other than her recent loss helped dull the pain.

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

  Four Years Ago

  “So, why didn’t you become a history teacher?” Stephen asked.

  Jenna and Stephen were out on their second date. He’d chosen an intimate restaurant that served Asian fusion cuisine in a dimly lit dining room. There were square, chunky candles lit on each table, and Jenna watched the flame reflect the sparkle in his eyes. She had not missed the playfulness in his tone, the way he smiled between bites of sushi. She was playing with her chopsticks, doing a delicate if not always efficient job of spearing her salmon teriyaki into tiny bits.

  She smiled. “I don’t know. Literature seemed like a better deal to me. There are some things about teaching English that are very—well—based on opinion. But if you can’t remember when the Wars of the Roses actually were, you’re just screwed.”

  “And here I thought that was just a movie.”

  She widened her eyes. “Yeah, right. You know better.”

  “Yes, I do,” he replied simply.

  It was the pauses that really threw her, when he was not smiling and she felt his intensity.

  “So, brooding teens and twenty-somethings instead of children. Which are worse?”

  “Neither,” she said softly. “I taught kindergarten kids for a while. I thought my mind might turn to mush if I didn’t try something more—well, it sounds awful to say it, but something requiring more thought. I completed my M.A. in night school. It took forever, but it was worth it.” She reached for her iced tea. It was early in the evening, but she had considered the possibility of wine at her place later.

  They hadn’t talked much on the first date. They’d gone to see a comedy that time, which she saw little of because they sat in the back of the theater, kissing like teenagers.

  It occurred to Jenna that they were already starting things completely out of order. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “What?” he asked, grinning. The mood between them was infectious.

  “It’s raining,” she nodded towards the window.

  “Yeah,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed. “It is.”

  “So what made you get into physical therapy?”

  He shrugged. “I was in pre-med, but I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do. I started reading about acupuncture and alternative forms of treatment, but that wasn’t quite the path for me either. When I started reading about what therapists do and researched it, I knew it was what I wanted.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. I’m very determined when it comes to things I want.”

  He took a sip of his drink. He’d scored in their little verbal battle, and he knew it.

  “Is it ever frustrating?”

  “Well. There are always people you can’t help, as there are in any profession. But the ones that you can help are what motivate you. When you get someone up and going after a serious injury and they’re back to normal.”

  LATER THAT NIGHT, SHE sat in his car. They were both silent, but he was holding her hand. Cutting through the dark streets, it felt like they were separate from the rest of the world, from the strangers moving behind the darkness of their car and the traffic lights above. Despite the heat flowing through the car’s interior, Jenna felt a shiver of cool air moving down her back, or at least she thought so.

  Anticipation.

  Once they were inside her apartment, she found herself feeling nervous. This man was new, and it had been a while since she’d been in a relationship. And the one before had ended badly.

  He whispered in her ear and touched her cheek. “My darling,” he said, calming her. And from there it was easy.

  “WHEN CAN I COME TAKE a look at the house?” Jenna asked.

  Diana held the phone for a beat. “How is tomorrow?”

  Jenna found it irritating that she had to work around her sister’s schedule, but she reminded herself that Diana was busy these days with her grandchildren.

  “Sure. Is there a spare key you can give me?” Jenna asked. “If not, I’ll have a copy made and ret
urn the original to you.”

  “Yeah. Look, I’ll be honest with you. I have quite a lot of furniture in there, and I haven’t gotten a place to store it.”

  “Well, that’s okay. I can put it in storage for you. That way you can take it out whenever you want.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  Jenna paused. Because you can’t afford it right now, she thought.

  “We’re family,” she said. “I want this to be as little trouble to you as possible.”

  “Well you’re going to need furniture. It’s not like you have any right now. And you might like what’s in there. Do you have money to waste right now?”

  No way was she going to live in a new place with someone else’s furniture. What would be the difference between that and staying at a hotel?

  Jenna paused. “I’ll have a look at things.”

  DIANA WAS STANDING in the driveway when Jenna got there.

  Diana wore jeans and one of her husband’s oversized t-shirts. Her hair was cut so short that it looked like a man’s that was slicked back with a handful of hair gel. She didn’t wear a trace of makeup.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise. At the funeral, Diana was dressed in a suit, but Jenna had noticed the weight she’d put on and that she’d cut off her hair. When they were younger, Diana had always been much thinner than Jenna and her hair was never shorter than shoulder length.

  Still, seeing her standing in the front yard, hands on hips, she seemed different. Something that a few pounds and a change of hairstyle didn’t account for.

  Jenna got out of her car. Diana smiled.

  One of Diana’s granddaughters ran towards her. “Aunt Jenna!” she cried.

  The little girl reached her before Diana did. She grabbed Jenna’s leg and hugged her, a blur of brown pigtails and round, wide eyes. Jenna bent down and hugged her.

  “How are you, Maya?” she asked.

  “Fine, fine!” the little girl said breathlessly. “I drew you a pretty picture, Auntie.”

  “Maya, she doesn’t have time for all that right now. You attacked her before she even got a chance to get off the sidewalk,” Diana laughed.

  Diana led the way back around the edge of the house. Jenna held Maya’s hand, and the little girl skipped happily beside her.

  The property was much larger than it appeared from the front. Diana’s house was a two bedroom that sat far back on the lot. Behind the house was a small hill. Stone steps had been built in to the land’s natural slope, creating a path to the second house.

  The creek bed, which was dry this time of the year, ran along the front of the second house. So the only way to access the street was to walk up the steps and down the driveway of Diana’s side of the property.

  Diana was silent as they made their way to the house, jingling her keys in her left hand.

  The house itself was not much more than a cottage, but it was quaint. The floors were dark hardwood. The windows took up half the wall in the living room, letting in bright arcs of sunlight. The place had potential, but it was crowded with random junk. The mouth of the fireplace was blocked by three rusted bicycles. An old, stained white sofa sat to one side beneath a window. Clothes and shoes littered the floor. The musty scent assaulted Jenna’s nose: old sweat and dust.

  “No one has been in here since my son died,” Diana said. “I’ll have it cleaned out for you by the time you’re ready to move in.”

  “Are you getting someone to help you?”

  “No. Why would I need that? These were my son’s things. I’ll see to them.”

  Jenna felt her stomach turn. She had allowed her nephew, Ahmad, to live here before the accident. She realized that it had been sitting empty since then, but she’d never expected that all these years later it remained just the way he’d left it, not a stitch of clothing or anything else touched. She’d expected to see large pieces of furniture covered by sheets, perhaps a few sentimental items lying about. The condition of the place was something she’d have liked to know beforehand.

  Now she felt like she was invading Diana’s space.

  “I’ll help you clean up,” Jenna offered.

  No. I’ve got it. Why don’t you go upstairs and look around?”

  JENNA LEFT DIANA AND Maya downstairs with their grandmother and explored the bedroom. It was the only room upstairs, other than the bath, and it was generously sized. She cringed a little at the sight of the unmade bed, the crumpled sheets holding the form of its last occupant. More sneakers, shirts, and jeans found their home on the floor. On the bed table was an empty can of beer and a digital alarm clock with the wrong time shivering in green.

  Jenna had not known much about her nephew Ahmad. She remembered meeting him once or twice as a little boy but not at all as a teenager. He died at seventeen. Since he was not the one driving, people seemed satisfied enough with that explanation.

  It bothered her that his things had been allowed to sit in the house without anyone picking them up and putting them away. Had no one offered to help? Or was it that Diana had brusquely refused?

  When Jenna came back downstairs, Maya was sitting on the edge of the couch, playing with a tennis ball she’d found on the floor. Diana stood in the entrance of the kitchen, hands on hips. She was watching Maya, but her focus was far away.

  “It’s a lovely house,” Jenna said. “Just needs a little care.”

  “Hmph,” Diana said. “Come on Maya. Say goodbye to your Aunt Jenna.”

  “Diana, is something wrong?”

  “I don’t like hanging around here,” she said. “And I need to pick up Taleya in a minute. I don’t mean to be rude, honey, but I need some air.”

  “Sure.”

  “Maya?” Diana called.

  The little girl got up and, with three hops, she stood in front of Jenna. “Auntie, are you coming to stay forever and ever? Grandma said so.”

  “Not today, baby,” Jenna said brightly, smoothing a lock of the child’s light brown hair. “But I’ll be back soon.”

  “ARE YOU SURE IT’S A good idea for her to come live here?” Henry asked.

  He was standing in front of the refrigerator. Diana had her back to him, throttling the dishes that she was supposed to be washing.

  “I don’t know how we have a plate left in this house, woman.”

  Diana rolled her eyes, paused, and started to rinse water glasses. “I don’t have a choice. No, I don’t want that bitch here, but it’s better than having a stranger in the house.”

  “Why couldn’t we let her sell it? You wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with tenants. She’s the owner, so she’d have to handle it.”

  “This is my daddy’s land, and I can’t let just anybody be back there.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah. I have heard that from you before. I know everybody was trying to get their fifty acres and a mule back in the day, but that’s over.”

  “You wouldn’t understand because you haven’t had any property in your family for that long.”

  Shake it off, Henry thought. He knew the set-up for a fight when he saw it, and Diana was in the mood for it.

  She had been complaining for a week solid about Jenna, and he was getting tired of listening.

  “Well, first off, did she like the house?” he prodded.

  “Of course she did. She wants it ready in two weeks.”

  “Okay. So what are we going to do about Ahmad’s things?” Henry almost held his breath after speaking her son’s name. He knew how she hated talking about him, how thinking about her son could still affect her emotions in ways he could not stand.

  Sadness he could relate to, anger as well, but he didn’t understand the coldness, the pretense that the boy had never lived in the first place. Diana hadn’t met Henry yet when her son died, and it often crossed his mind that he could not have stayed with her if Ahmad had been his own son.

  No matter how bad the grief, he could not have pretended his child never existed.

  “I’m going to sell
them.”

  “Sell them? Are you sure?”

  Diana did not lift her eyes from the window. She was staring at a spot in the distance, something in the yard.

  “So what exactly are you getting rid of? I can make a list . . .”

  “No, I’m going to do it. And I want to get rid of it all. Can you call the Penny Pincher and ask them to place an ad for a garage sale? If we can get it done next Saturday, that would be good.”

  “I can place an ad online. I don’t know that anyone even uses the Penny Pincher these days, baby. People don’t read papers like they used to.”

  “Well, you know me and computers don’t mix. If I was looking for a good deal, I’d use the paper.”

  “We can advertise in both. Why are you upset?”

  “Because she’s coming. And I’d rather burn all his things than let her touch what belonged to my son.”

  SOMETIME AROUND ONE in the morning, Diana’s family was asleep.

  Henry slept like the dead. In their bunk beds, Taleya and Maya tossed and turned, but their eyes never opened.

  Diana went out onto the darkness of her front porch and sat on the swing, letting the night air caress her skin.

  She had promised to stop smoking the month before, but with Jenna’s impending move, she was all the way up to a pack a day again. She’d told herself she was going to cut back on beer too, but no such luck.

  Well, I won’t have a snack tonight, she thought. Her chuckle rattled in the darkness.

  It caught inside her constricted throat and became a cough soon enough.

  The moon was out, and Diana could see it cresting above the trees. Moonlight cast a silvery glow. Everything was quiet, except for the crickets chatting to each other. When the weather was hot, she loved to sit outside in the dark. It was good to be alone with her thoughts.

  Exhaling, she watched the smoke flow away from her and took another puff from her cigarette.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the crickets.