by Karen White
I smiled, eager to change the subject before I really dug myself into a hole. I was intrigued by something he’d said about his wife’s home. “Speaking of your wife’s family, I met your late sister-in-law once, so when you mentioned that your house had become a shrine, is that who you were referring to?”
His demeanor shifted to the way he’d been when I first spotted him at the clock, aloof and dismissive. “Partly. There are oil paintings and old photos of pretty much every family member who ever had their likeness captured. It’s ridiculous; it makes those of us who married into the family feel like permanent outsiders. But Adrienne’s room . . .”
He almost seemed angry and I was ready to change the subject again, but he didn’t seem to want to. “They haven’t changed a thing. Even her makeup is still on the dressing table along with her hairbrush that still has her hair in it. Can you imagine? Her clothes are hanging in her closet, and her rain boots are still in the mudroom. I mean, to lose a child is horrible, but it’s like living with a dead person.”
You have no idea. “I can imagine how difficult that might be for you. But surely you and Veronica will want to redecorate now that you’re living in her family home.”
Michael blew out a puff of air. “You’d think. And actually, that’s what we’d started doing when we discovered Adrienne’s college trunk in the attic. Ever since, Veronica refuses to let anything be changed in case we disturb any lingering evidence. Like there would be after twenty years! I’m getting close to fed up, I guess, which is sort of feeding my dislike of antiques.” He shook his head. “Sorry—it’s just a raw spot for me right now. Didn’t mean to drag you into it.” His smile was ingratiating again, and I found myself warming to him, wondering if we had more in common than he thought.
Veronica approached and tucked her hand into the crook of Michael’s arm and I wondered if I’d imagined him stiffening at her touch. Of course, if there was a long-term argument regarding their current living situation simmering between them, I couldn’t blame him.
“I hope you’re not monopolizing our hostess,” she said, squeezing his arm in either affection or warning, I wasn’t sure.
“Not at all,” I said. “We were just discussing the merits of history and old houses and their places in our lives. Not to mention the costs associated with renovating a historic house. Trust me, I could write a book, but it would have to be shelved with the horror novels.” I’d said it as a joke, but neither one of them laughed.
“Melanie has agreed to help us with Adrienne’s case.”
Michael pulled away. “I thought you said you were consulting a psychic medium.” He looked at me suspiciously.
I sent Veronica a look of warning. “Actually, she consulted with my mother. I happened to be there at the time.”
“Yes, well, just for the record, I don’t believe in that mumbo jumbo. If you don’t mind, the less said about it in front of my daughter would be greatly appreciated.”
“You are certainly not alone in that assessment,” I said, thinking of my own father. “And I have no intention of dragging Lindsey into any sort of paranormal investigation my mother may be doing.”
Veronica frowned at me but didn’t say anything.
“Please tell me you don’t believe in that stuff, too?” he asked, his voice wavering with a tinge of belligerence.
“Let’s just say I prefer to keep an open mind.”
He shook his head. “Even if by coincidence something did turn up because of what a psychic medium said, that stuff’s not admissible in a court of law, right?”
“I’m not sure how it works in the legal system, but evidence is still evidence.”
“But there isn’t any,” he said through gritted teeth, and I stepped back, wondering when the conversation had gotten so out of hand.
Veronica must have thought the same thing, because she pulled on his arm. “I’m sure Melanie has heard more than enough of our issues, Michael. Let’s allow her to mingle with her other guests.”
I watched them walk away and saw Veronica shoot me a questioning glance over her shoulder.
I joined Jack in a group with Cooper and his parents. I was relieved that the conversation wasn’t about blood-alcohol levels or the importance of safe sex—not that Jack would be a role model for either topic—but on the much safer subject of golf. Apparently, both Cecily and Cal were avid golfers, as were their children. When Cal suggested I make up a foursome on Sunday, I saw the horror in Jack’s eyes. I had the coordination and athletic grace of a bear and had nearly permanently blinded and crippled Jack on our first—and only—visit to the driving range.
“I don’t play,” I said, hoping to end the conversation.
“Nola said that Jayne is a pretty good golfer,” Cooper interjected. “She apparently used to work for a golf pro and she taught Jayne how to play. Her employer said she was a natural and that if Jayne devoted herself to golf, she could be giving the other pros a run for their money.”
Cecily laughed and took a sip of her wine. “Well, now I’m intrigued. I’m not a bad golfer myself and would like to know how I measure up.” She faced me. “I’m sure the nanny gets days off. You wouldn’t mind her taking your spot, would you, Melanie?”
I thought my cheeks would crack from holding my frozen smile in place. “Wow, of course not—that sounds like so much fun! I’d be happy to watch the children so she could go golfing with my husband.”
Jack sent me an odd look.
“I meant my husband and friends. I mean, what’s wrong with that?” I was starting to sound like Jayne, so I took a sip from my own wineglass just so I couldn’t speak anymore.
Cooper looked at his watch. “Excuse us, but I think it’s time to head out.”
The girls ran upstairs to refresh their makeup and giggle, then returned to gather their evening bags and wraps. I surreptitiously checked Nola’s bag to make sure her father hadn’t sneaked in a small can of Mace, and handed it to her.
We ushered the young adults out onto the piazza and forced them all to stand in a group so I could get one picture that wasn’t a selfie. As they headed out to the street, where the limo waited, Nola hung back. Giving her a hug, I said, “You look beautiful. Have fun tonight.”
“I will. Just please tell Dad to chill out. He kept giving those looks to Cooper all night. I’m afraid he won’t even dance with me now. I mean, Dad should trust me. Especially because I have never given him a reason not to.”
I glanced back at Jack, who stood on the piazza at the railing and was nursing another Coke on the rocks. He was doing a great impression of a vulture hovering over an unlucky roadkill victim that wasn’t quite dead. “I will, and I know. Just please understand that you’re his daughter, and he’s being protective because he adores you. And I know Sarah appreciates you smoothing the way for her.” I squeezed her again and gave her a light peck on the cheek.
She smiled, then sent another uncertain look behind her. “You don’t think he’ll be waiting on the porch when we get back, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said, not completely sure how I’d keep him inside. Maybe I could slip Benadryl into his Coke and knock him out.
Cooper held out his arm to Nola and she took it, allowing him to escort her down the piazza steps into the garden. A cool breeze swept from around the fountain, gently moving her hair and dress, and bringing with it the scent of roses that were at least a month away from blooming.
“Why are you smiling?” Jack said as he put his arm around me.
I looked up at him. “Oh, I don’t know. Just a feeling I have that we’re being watched over.”
Nola was already tucked into the limo with the other two girls and their dates, leaving Cooper by the back door to turn around and wave good-bye. I watched in horror as Jack made a V with his two fingers, pointed at his eyes with them, and then turned them toward Cooper.
I knocked
his hand down and waved back at Cooper, whose smile had vanished. “Don’t mind him,” I called out. “Have fun!”
The limo pulled away and the parents left shortly afterward, leaving a tense Jack and me alone. “Nola asked me to help you chill out. We do have four empty hours to fill.” I stood on my toes and kissed him.
“Hold that thought,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to his study. “I’ve been dying to share this with you all day. After several postponements, I finally went into the family archives today at the Charleston Museum, and I think I might have found something interesting.”
He flipped on the banker’s lamp on the corner of his desk and began to riffle through sheets of photocopied papers strewn over its surface. I closed my eyes, wishing I had a baby to sniff to help with the rising blood pressure. “Apparently, Rosalind—Button’s mother—left all her correspondence to the museum, including her son Sumter’s. I don’t know if there’s anything significant in that collection, but I figured I’d go through it just in case, so I made copies. The donation was made after Anna’s death, probably a posthumous request made by Rosalind so as not to offend the living. Anyway, I’ve just had a chance to thumb through it so far, but I did find this. I’m assuming Button cut this from the Post and Courier when Anna died, and put it with her brother’s papers.”
I squinted to read the small, typed print, amazed as I usually was how newspapers could condense stories of giant proportions into a small square of text. I read it twice, just to make sure I was reading it correctly. I met Jack’s gaze. “Anna killed herself. How horrible.”
“She hanged herself in her daughter’s attic bedroom,” Jack added.
My eyes widened as I remembered the horrible presence in the house, the push and pull of two warring entities, and I couldn’t help wondering if I’d just discovered the identity of at least one of them.
“She must have been so distraught over Hasell’s death,” I said. “But if she’s the very unhappy ghost we’ve sensed in the house, we need to find out why, and why she’s still here.” I frowned. “Unfortunately, when only a dead person knows the answer, there’s only one way to find out what that is.”
CHAPTER 19
Ihuffed next to Sophie as we walked along one of the paths at Cannon Park, its asphalt edge bordered by an outrageously colorful flower bed full of plantings my dad would lust over but I couldn’t name. I pushed the jogging stroller with the twins, and Sophie carried Blue Skye in a carrier not unlike the one Rebecca used for her dog, Pucci.
Cannon Park was near Ashley Hall on Rutledge, so I’d suggested meeting Sophie after carpool drop-off to catch up. I missed seeing her as often as I had when we were both single and before children and spouses had taken up most of our lives. Not that I wanted her to read my tarot cards or tell me again why old windows were far superior to what was being made today, but I missed her company. There was something to be said for a friend who told you the truth about everything, even when you didn’t want to hear it. Even if that friend dressed like a Sesame Street character, and had suggested underwater birthing as a viable alternative to a normal hospital birth.
“Why are you walking so fast?” I panted, struggling to keep up.
“Why are you struggling? I thought you’d been walking with your mother, and you have a jogging stroller. I assumed that you could keep up.” She began pumping her arms and walking even faster.
“No fair—I’ve got two and you’ve only got the one. And besides, Jayne uses the jogging stroller just about every day, so I pretty much consider it hers now.”
She sent me an odd look but kept up her grueling pace without comment.
We had reached the tall, stately columns and front steps of the former museum building that had burned in 1981, leaving only the columns, all in a perfect semicircle, as a reminder of what had once stood there.
“Do you smell fire?” I asked, putting my hand over my nose because of the choking fumes.
“No,” Sophie said matter-of-factly. “You say that every time we’re here. You’re just smelling a fire that’s more than thirty years old.”
I brightened. “But I can smell it! That’s good to know. My psychic abilities seem to be fading in and out on me these days, for no apparent reason. There are times, like right now, when they’re as strong as ever, and then other times when I’m completely blocked out.”
“That is weird. I’d say it was hormones, but when you were pregnant it went away completely and didn’t come and go.”
“Maybe it’s postpartum hormones.”
Sophie finally slowed down so she could look at me. “Seriously? It’s been almost a year. They should have settled down by now and your mind and body gone back to the way they were.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “Some people take longer than others to bounce back.” I took a quick bite of my slightly squished doughnut from Ruth’s Bakery that I’d smuggled into the house. I’d bought a dozen when Ruth was visiting her sister for a couple of days and I’d taken advantage of her substitute. I’d kept them hidden in the back of the freezer, constantly checking to make sure Mrs. Houlihan hadn’t rearranged anything and discovered my stash, smuggling one in the waistband of my yoga pants whenever I left the house to exercise. I didn’t want to pass out because I didn’t have the sustaining fuel I needed.
“Yes, but I’d guess that had more to do with bad habits than hormones.”
I looked through the space between the columns, seeing the specter of a giant whale skeleton floating from an invisible ceiling. “Sophie, do you see . . . ?”
“No, I don’t see the whale skeleton, either. It was moved to the new museum location before the fire. It’s not here anymore.”
“But I do see it,” I said with a relieved smile. “And that’s good. At least until I’m looking into a mirror and see somebody behind me. Then I might change my mind again.”
Baby Skye began kicking her legs and grunting, her feet as usual clad in tiny Birkenstocks, bouncing up and down as we passed the playground. Sophie stopped and took the baby from her carrier so she could hold her and look at the baby face-to-face. “Use your hands, Blue Skye. Use your hands to tell Mommy what you want.”
The baby stopped bouncing and stared solemnly into her mother’s face. And then, as if she’d actually understood what Sophie had said, Blue Skye opened and closed her fists, thrusting them in the direction of the playground.
“You want to go on the swings?”
Blue Skye made the same motion with her hands.
“Do you mind if we stop?” Sophie asked. “She loves it when I push her on the swing.”
“Um, sure,” I said. “And what was that?”
“It’s baby sign language. It’s a way for babies to communicate without crying. I highly recommend it.”
I wanted to ask her if it would just be easier to teach the child to actually speak, but I knew I’d get a response that would further confuse me. I parked the stroller, then reached into the outside pocket of the diaper bag I’d slung over the handles and pulled out a baggie filled with antibacterial baby wipes and began approaching the swings.
“What are those for?” Sophie asked.
“To rub down the swing before you put Skye in it. She might touch it.”
“Exactly,” she said, pulling Skye out of her pouch and walking past me before settling her into the little swing. “It’s good for them to be exposed to germs. You know, children in the jungles of Africa are healthier than our kids here because they’ve been allowed to develop immunities. With our constant disinfecting and bleaching, we are really making ourselves and our children vulnerable.”
I inwardly shuddered as I watched Skye clasp the sides of the swing and then immediately put her fingers into her mouth. “Please don’t tell me you don’t believe in vaccinations, either.”
She put a hand on her hip. “That would be stupid. Of course I belie
ve in vaccinations. Why on earth would you think that I wouldn’t?”
I shrugged. “Well, you wear Birkenstocks. And you’re a vegetarian.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “Do you ever listen to yourself? Seriously, Melanie. Remind me again why we’re friends.”
I pretended to think. “Because you desperately need my fashion advice, and I like giving it.”
She grinned. “Right. Well, I’m not the one wearing yoga pants with a hidden compartment for doughnuts.” She shook her head as she gave the baby swing a gentle push.
I eventually got tired of watching her while I held a baby on each hip, and put the twins in two adjacent swings. When Sophie wasn’t looking, I used the hem of my shirt to wipe the places on the swings where the babies might touch them and then tried not to hyperventilate each time they brought their fingers to their mouths.
We chatted about work, children, husbands, and the joys of yoga—Sophie did all the talking about the latter—until the conversation settled on the Pinckney house. “I’ve never been given such a carte blanche on a restoration,” Sophie admitted. “And neither has the restoration company I’m working with. It’s a great feeling, knowing I’m not going to be nickel-and-dimed, or second-guessed, or yelled at when something new and unexpected comes up.”
“I’ve never yelled at you,” I protested.
“No, but I can tell when you want to, and that’s almost as bad. Anyway, it’s been really easy working with Jayne on this project.”
“Has she told you what she wants to do with the attic and its contents?” I asked, trying not to cringe as JJ leaned over and began mouthing the safety bar in front of him.
“No, not yet. And we really need to start working on the roof. A tarp only goes so far. I can’t repair the ceilings on the second floor until we’ve got the roof issue addressed. I’ve been up to the attic with my restoration toys and have measured the moisture in the walls and I have to say it’s not good. We’ll probably have to rip everything back to the studs—and I hate doing that because you never know what you might find. I’m just hoping we won’t discover black mold, because that’s a whole different ball game. If you could talk to Jayne soon to get an answer, that would be great. I suppose we could just move everything to another room on the second story, but everything there was just so . . . personal. Every time I go up there, I’m left thinking that Button wanted Jayne to take care of that stuff. Otherwise why didn’t she just get rid of it all after Hasell and Anna died?”
