Dead to Her

by Sarah Pinborough

“I don’t want . . .” Keisha had started, panicked, before the words fizzled out. What didn’t she want? To be free of William? That had been her wish. To be free of it all was always her wish.

  “We can’t help what we want, honey,” the old woman said, turning and shuffling away, back out to the street. “We all got our wishes.” She paused before banging her cane three times hard on the pavement, chuckling and shaking her head, amused at something and everything, before going on her way again.

  Keisha had said nothing more after that. She’d sat on the low wall by the parking lot and taken the second Valium she’d brought in her purse and waited until the drugs worked their own magic and soothed her trembling soul. She needed distractions from the darkness. She needed to be wild. To be free. She needed not to care. To be numb to it, the wickedness that followed her. She’d tapped at the side of her head, trying to knock her hysteria away. She couldn’t break now. She couldn’t.

  And she hadn’t. Not yesterday. She’d flirted with Jason in the garage, she’d laughed with dull Virginia in the house, she’d ignored Marcie as best she could, she’d drunk too much wine, and then she’d fucked William like the whore he probably thought she was.

  But today, today was a different story. Today, Valium and wine or not, her mind was breaking. Spiders ran amok in her thoughts, scattering her rationale.

  The coins were one thing. The conjure ball was something else.

  Auntie Ayo had made a conjure ball once. Keisha had seen it. When Auntie Ayo’s best friend, Winnie, was left broken-hearted and with her bank account emptied by her cheating husband, Frank, Auntie Ayo had shut the doors to her special room, melting wax and earth and blood and whispering the darkest of words, and not come out for two days. Keisha had seen, through the crack of her bedroom door, when her aunt had come out and shown a lumpen black sphere to Uncle Yahuba, who’d muttered with a contained displeasure that he didn’t have the balls to ever really release.

  Keisha hadn’t known what it was then, the conjure ball, but she heard Auntie Ayo, drunk on rum, tell the story later, after the funeral. She’d slipped it, weighty with dark wishes, into Frank’s jacket pocket, and a month later he found the first lump in his unfaithful testicles. It was, of course, too late. He went downhill fast. Too fast to divorce Winnie for his floozy, and Winnie got the house he’d never actually put in her name and the money stashed in accounts he’d never told her about.

  Auntie Ayo hadn’t done too badly out of it either, but Winnie didn’t come around so much after that, not after she’d brought the envelope of money—a gift of thanks—not asked for but definitely expected. Winnie sold the house and moved north somewhere, and she dutifully sent cards, but she never visited again. Maybe Winnie had still loved Frank a little at the end. Or maybe she’d never realized the depths of Auntie Ayo’s power before. What kind of woman Auntie Ayo was. Maybe Winnie had gotten a little scared that what she’d wished for in a moment of bitter heartache could come true so easily.

  And now there was another conjure ball.

  She’d been in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, calling out for William. There was an army of cleaners in the house scrubbing and polishing every already spotless surface to be decorated for the party that weekend, and she’d been sitting out by the pool for an hour to escape the hum and noise while her Valium took hold. She’d also secretly finished off half a bottle of wine to help settle her nerves before being able to face her husband. Husband. The word was like the clank of chains on her ankle. It was better in a haze. Nothing mattered in a haze. When she was stoned, the world lost the sharp edges so determined to slice her up whichever way she turned.

  Once the mellow began flooding her veins, warming her in places the sun couldn’t reach, she’d felt bad for hiding from William. For leaving him inside to run and sweat and shower and eat breakfast alone, and no doubt get more annoyed at her, his less-than-perfect wife. Maybe they should go to the club and get an early brunch. She’d flatter him and laugh at his jokes and he’d be her sweet William from London once again, the ghost who had never been real.

  She’d gone inside, giggling as the cool air-conditioning tickled her tingling sensitive skin, and leaned against the banister calling his name, singsongy like a child. Everything would be okay. The Valium would brush away the darkness, sending the dust into sunshine. She was not cursed KeKe with the damaged mind but Mrs. William Radford IV, beautiful, young, perfect, and with the world in the palm of her hand.

  William hadn’t answered her, but instead, amid the distant sounds of vacuuming and activity filling the house, there had been a jarring, heavy thump from overhead. The tread of the dead, clumsy and with too much weight. Thud. Thud. Thud. Keisha had stared, her foggy brain trying to make sense of the fear tightening her gut, as the beat sped up, the heavy ball gaining momentum, just as Keisha’s heartbeat pounded faster when she finally realized what was rolling down the wide polished stairs.

  No, no, no, no . . . She’d thought the words were silent in her head as she flew up the stairs to get away from it before it landed, missing one completely as if the ball might defy the laws of gravity and leap at her, that ball with her blackened soul’s desires tied up inside with string, until William came running along the corridor in his robe, fat body still wet from the shower, slick footsteps on the marble, and she wondered if he’d fall right there and then, tumble down, echoing the conjure ball, and smash his head open like a watermelon all over the freshly buffed hallway, just like she wished he would.

  “What the hell is the matter?” He didn’t fall, but grabbed her arms as she reached the top banister, pulling her toward him. His face was concerned but his grip was hurting her arm.

  “Down there,” she muttered, looking back. “It came down the stairs. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” What couldn’t she do? She couldn’t look at it. She couldn’t touch it. She could barely breathe. She wished she could stop breathing. Cursed girl, cursed girl.

  “What?” William peered down as Zelda and Elizabeth and various cleaning staff trickled out of rooms to see what the fuss was about. Zelda. Her dark eyes were dancing, amused. Keisha pressed her head into William’s shoulder, but he didn’t hug her or hold her or tell her it was okay. His spine was stiff. He wasn’t going to reassure his wife as one would a child. He wanted her elegant and possessed. She wanted to laugh, a hysterical condemned laugh, Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London practicing on the block. Possessed. Maybe she was.

  “Here, take her. She smells like she’s been drinking.” The words were muttered as he passed her into softer hands, and then Elizabeth wrapped her arm around one shoulder.

  “Let’s go and sit down.”

  “Mrs. Radford’s room is empty,” Zelda said, shooing the cleaners back to their tasks. “You can go in there, Miss Elizabeth.”

  Mrs. Radford’s room. She was Mrs. Radford, wasn’t she? It was as if Keisha were the ghost and the dead wife still lived.

  34.

  Jason had left early for work, and Marcie had gone to the gym to work up a sweat and clear her head of Keisha, the unwelcome reminder of her past that had reared its head yesterday. By the time she got home, having picked up a delicious superfoods green salad from Fernando’s on the way, she was in a better mood. She knew she still had good muscle tone, but it didn’t hurt to make sure everything stayed perky and where it should be. A touch of Botox could take care of the occasional wrinkle, but her body was all down to the effort she put in. And more than that, she liked to feel strong. Keisha was strong rather than skinny, and her body was beautiful.

  Keisha. Just thinking about her body—about the things they’d done together—made Marcie’s tired body tingle. It was fine her brain telling her she had to stop, but her body had other ideas. Marcie picked up the mail and took it into the kitchen, throwing it onto the counter and hungrily opening her salad box. She wasn’t even going to sort through it—the only mail that ever came for her was marketing junk from various stores she’d been stupid enough to give her de
tails to—but then as she went to fetch a fork from the cutlery drawer she noticed the start of her name on an expensive white envelope. She pulled it free and stared for a moment.

  The paper felt almost like fabric under her touch and her name had been written in lilac ink in beautiful cursive. It was a Savannah postmark. A wedding invitation perhaps, she thought, but couldn’t think of any of their friends who had children who’d recently gotten engaged. She slid a knife into the corner and carefully opened it, oddly both curious and excited. Letters were a thing of the past, gone even as she grew up. Communication was all online or by cell phone. The only mail her mom had ever gotten had been demands for money.

  It was an invitation, she realized, as she pulled the thick card free and gasped. Not to a wedding, but to something so much better. She stared at the words on the first line, all thought of how hungry she was forgotten.

  Dear Marcie, we would like to invite you to the next luncheon meeting of the Magnolias.

  The Magnolias. Of all the ladies’ lunch clubs and organizations in Savannah, the Magnolias were the most prestigious. Iris was in the Magnolias. Eleanor had been. Marcie wasn’t even sure that Virginia was. The Magnolias was for the wives of the movers and shakers of Savannah. The powerful men who, each in his own professional way, were the blood of the city. Word that Jason was buying William out must have been spreading, and now Marcie was becoming someone the ladies of the city wanted to keep close. To be friends with. To allow into the inner circle.

  Her heart was racing. No one would look down on her again if she was a Magnolia. As much as she bitched and moaned about the Savannah sets, the Magnolias were more of an organization. There were maybe fifty Magnolias. Too many to be a clique but still aloof, private, and powerful. Respected.

  She sat down at the breakfast island, placing the card carefully in front of her where nothing would get spilled on it. At last, after a lifetime of being looked down on or laughed at or judged, this girl from Tommy’s Riverbank mobile home park whose mama drank too much and slept around and could barely pay the bills or rent on their crappy trailer was now going to be one of the most respected women in Savannah.

  She had to make this marriage work. She had to. It was time to grow up. And more than anything, she had to stop this crazy situation with Keisha.

  35.

  Elizabeth had gotten her a glass of water and put a cool compress on her forehead, the two women sitting side by side on the dead wife’s bed. “Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked. “You look pale. I hear you nearly fainted at church too?”

  Keisha still couldn’t speak but sat trembling as the damp cloth and the icy air-conditioning fought the heat that raged in her.

  “Are you maybe . . . ?” Elizabeth smiled and then looked down at Keisha’s stomach. “You know.”

  Keisha tried to laugh but it was close to a sob. “No, I don’t think so.” She smells like she’s been drinking. “I wouldn’t drink if I was pregnant.” Would she? Maybe she would. Maybe she didn’t deserve a child of her own. Would the child be cursed too? She broke things, that’s what she did. She was selfish. She was KeKe and always would be, not Mrs. William Radford IV.

  The conjure ball.

  She shivered again. She’d wished harm on William—more than wished it—and now the bad juju had come for her, the cursed girl. She’d die here, she knew she would.

  William appeared in the doorway, brow furrowed and cheeks redder than normal. His expression screamed, I don’t need this shit, not in front of all these people. “It was nothing. Just some ball of mud. They’ve thrown it out.”

  Mud. Dirt. Graves. Keisha was sure she could taste rot in her mouth.

  “A ball of mud?” Elizabeth frowned. “Who would have brought that into the house?” She wasn’t as dismissive as William. It gave Keisha a thread of sanity to cling to. Something to stop her from drifting into the terrifying darkness. The ball wasn’t normal. It wasn’t an accident. Someone had brought it in here on purpose.

  “Zelda says two of the maids had their children with them today. They were playing outside earlier. I guess they made it.” He paused. “They won’t be working here again.” He looked at Keisha but didn’t come any closer. “You feeling better?”

  She nodded. What else could she do?

  “Good. I’m going to get dressed, then decide what to do while all this chaos reigns. This party had better be worth it!” It sounded like a threat rather than a joke. “Come find me in ten minutes.”

  It was a command, as if she were the assistant, not Elizabeth. Maybe they were all bought and paid for. Interchangeable. Robots with different function settings. He paused, his eyes catching on something to his right, and then he frowned. More than frowned. If an expression could growl, that’s what William’s face was doing. His skin paled, leaving only two red blotches high on his cheeks.

  “Did you do that?” Each word was a quiet hissing drop of acid. It took a moment before Keisha realized what he was talking about. She followed his eyes and her mouth dropped open. The photo. The one she’d taken out of the dresser. Eleanor looking happy with her arms wrapped around Lyle, when he was just a smiling boy thinking he had decades of the world ahead of him.

  Her mouth moved, unable to form an adequate excuse as William glared, hate and rage and embarrassment at himself for marrying her all fighting for supremacy. She was about to force out some breath of begging apology when Elizabeth cut in.

  “Oh, silly me, I’m so sorry. One of Eleanor’s charities wanted a less formal photo for a fund-raiser in her name. I was looking for one and must have left that one out.” She shrugged, almost helpless. “I’m so sorry, William, I know how you don’t like to be reminded of Lyle’s death, how painful it is for you. I’ll put it back.”

  But what about Lyle’s life? Keisha wanted to ask. Surely that was something to treasure. Surely that was worth a little pain. Another boy who was no longer there, like the ghost she saw. Did Lyle exist only in dreams now? That place where no one can hide from themselves, where the doors to all hidden worries and fears swing open at night?

  William didn’t look convinced, but he nodded curtly, before turning his back on them. “Ten minutes,” he called back to Keisha, no warmth in his voice, only irritation. She didn’t answer. She wanted to cry. There was a long pause after he left, the two women sitting in quiet before Keisha looked at Elizabeth.

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I take it that was you?” Elizabeth tilted her head, a curious bird. She had deep crinkles around her dark eyes and they looked like laughter lines and Keisha thought it might be nice to one day be old and have skin that creased in confession to a happy life. “Why?”

  Keisha sighed. “I don’t really know. I don’t know why I do half of what I do. I just thought . . . You’ll think I’m stupid. I just thought, well, if there is such a thing as ghosts, and I feel like she is still here, then it might help her rest more easily. All that love and loss shouldn’t be hidden away like it never happened.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “That was very sweet, Keisha. I think you’re a very sweet girl.”

  “I’m not,” she said, afraid she might cry. “I’ve never been good.”

  “Well, I think you are. I’m sure you’re no saint, don’t get me wrong, but goodness is something else. And I see it in you. Maybe it’s hidden away because it’s had to be, but it’s there.” She took the cold cloth and carefully folded it, even though it was no doubt going straight into the laundry, before getting up and putting the photo back out of sight.

  “Why are the photos all hidden away?” Keisha asked, wanting to think of anything but the sickening thud of the conjure ball on the stairs. “I could kind of understand if Lyle had died recently, but it was years ago, right? Didn’t they want to remember him? To see him around the house, even if it was just in pictures?”

  “Oh, Eleanor would have had them everywhere, especially in this house, where there were no memories of raising him. It nearly broke her whe
n he died. She didn’t want him to join the military but you know how boys are. Lyle wanted to impress his father and he thought that would work. Of course, almost immediately the conflict in Afghanistan started. That was just poor Lyle’s luck. He died very quickly. One of the first U.S. casualties.”

  “Oh God,” Keisha said. “That’s awful.”

  “It nearly killed Eleanor as well. I’ve never seen someone in so much pain. But she was strong. She got through it.”

  “And William?”

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to let out a deep sigh. “Men are different. They’re like children. He was hiding from his guilt as much as his pain. Guilt for forcing Lyle to do something that was out of character. William couldn’t face that any more than Eleanor could face her grief at first.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind,” Keisha said softly. If only she could feel that way about the conjure ball. The strange old woman. The silver coins.

  Elizabeth smiled gently at her. “Something like that.”

  It had been a day that shimmered, like looking through melting glass. Everything was too bright and she couldn’t focus. By midafternoon Keisha’s head was pounding, each painful thump the conjure ball falling one step closer to her, an endless tread on a stairway to hell. They’d gone for a silent lunch, during which William spent most of the time checking emails on his phone while she drank her wine, and then he snapped at her when she tried to kiss him across the table, saying she was drunk and causing a scene.

  She’d cried then, really causing a scene, emotional exhaustion brought on by her Valium comedown, too much alcohol, and too much fear. Where was it coming from? She hadn’t been this bad since she’d been a teenager, and now her moods were spiraling out of control. She felt sick all the time. She needed an anchor to keep her tied to this world, and if it had to be William for now then she had to try harder. She wanted to be forgiven for things she’d done and not yet done. She wanted it all to go away. She’d try to love him. She’d try to be good.