by Karen White
I looked up into the face of the woman who’d once been the world to me, when I was too small to understand the vagaries of human nature and that calling somebody “Mother” didn’t always mean what you wanted it to.
“Hello, Mellie,” she said in a soft, melodious voice that had haunted my dreams for years until I’d grown old enough to believe that I didn’t need to hear my mother’s voice anymore.
I winced at the sound of the nickname she’d given me—the nickname I’d never let anybody call me until I’d met Jack, who persisted in calling me Mellie regardless of whether I wanted him to.
I faced Jack, and my fury easily turned on him. “You set this up, didn’t you? You knew I didn’t want to see her or talk to her but you set this up anyway. How dare you? How dare you involve yourself, uninvited I might add, in something that has nothing to do with you and something I explicitly made clear to you that I wanted nothing to do with.” I paused just for a second to catch my breath, ignoring my mother’s presence completely since that was the only way I could remain relatively calm. “I don’t want to see you again. Ever.”
He raised his eyebrow, and I knew we were both remembering another time when I’d said the exact same words. I leaned forward and pressed my finger into his sweater-covered chest. “And I really mean it this time.”
I stood, intending to make a graceful exit, but managed instead to bump the table and spill the remainder of my latte in addition to two tall glasses of water. I slid to the next chair to escape the deluge, and while a busboy and our waitress were cleaning up the mess, my mother used the opportunity to slide into my vacated chair, effectively holding me hostage between her and the window.
She faced the side of my head because I refused to look at her. “Please don’t be angry with Jack. I’ll admit to using my friendship with his mother to coerce him into helping me. It’s hard to say no to Amelia Trenholm, even if you’re her son.”
I knew Amelia, and even liked her, but it didn’t stop the need I had to get out of that restaurant and away from my mother as fast as I could. Staring down at the wooden tabletop, I said, “I haven’t had anything to say to you for over thirty years, Mother. And I don’t think anything has changed. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I’m meeting clients at nine to show them houses in the Old Village and I don’t want to be late.”
She didn’t move and I was forced to continue staring at the darkened wood of the tabletop because I didn’t want to look across from me and see the reproach in Jack’s eyes.
My mother folded her hands on top of the table—still wearing her gloves—and I wondered if she wore them out of habit now or still out of necessity.
“I need your help, Mellie. Your grandmother’s house on Legare is for sale again and I need your professional help in purchasing it. Everyone says that you’re the best Realtor in Charleston.”
Finally, I faced her for the first time, seeing the dark hair swept back in a low ponytail, her flawless skin and high cheekbones, and the green eyes I had always wanted instead of my father’s hazel ones. Only the hint of fine lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth showed that she had aged at all since the night she said good night to me when she really should have said good-bye.
“There are hundreds of other Realtors in Charleston, Mother, all as qualified as I am, and a hell of a lot more willing, to help you purchase a home. In other words, no, thank you. I don’t need to make a buck that bad.”
To my surprise, she smiled. “You haven’t really changed all that much.”
“How would you know?” I asked, needing to wipe the smile from her face.
I heard Jack suck in a breath. “Mellie, I know you’re hurt, and I wouldn’t have had any part in this if I thought your mother was here just to make you feel worse. But there’s more, and I think you need to listen to her. She believes you might be in danger.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Right. Well, tell her that I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for more than thirty years, after all. And I’m not speaking to you, remember?”
My mother spoke quietly beside me. “I’ve been having dreams. Every night. Dreams about a boat at the bottom of the ocean rising to the surface after many years. There’s something—evil about it.” Her eyes met mine and darkened. “And it’s looking for you.”
My throat tightened as a lungful of air escaped through my mouth. I recalled the phone call I’d received the night before and the feeling of dread that had followed me all morning, and I had the odd sensation that I had just fallen through thin ice into freezing water. I swallowed, giving my voice time to find me.
“It was a dream, Mother. Only a dream.” I slid on my coat and fumbled with the buttons with shaking fingers before giving up on them. “And I really must go. If you need a recommendation for a good Realtor, call our receptionist, Nancy Flaherty, and she’ll put you through to somebody.”
“I tried to reach you, after I left. I did.”
I thought of all the things I wanted to say to her—all the things I’d rehearsed saying to her if I ever saw her again—but they all seemed to fall short now that I had the opportunity. Instead, all I said was, “You should have tried harder.”
To my surprise, my mother slid out of her chair and stood, a printed card held out to me between two gloved fingers. “Take my card; you’re going to need it. This isn’t the first time it’s sought you out, you know. But it is the first time you’re old enough to fight it.” She paused. “We are not as we seem, Mellie.”
Again, I was consumed with the feeling of plunging into icy water, and I couldn’t speak. I stared at my mother without making a move to take the card. After a moment she laid it on the table, and with a brief good-bye to Jack she walked away, leaving the lingering scent of orchids and stale grief behind her.
I turned to Jack again but he held up his hand. “I know. You don’t want to speak to me or see me again. I get it. But I think you need to listen to your mother. Her psychic abilities are well known and she knows what she’s talking about. Sure, she could be wrong. After all, you have the gift too, right? And you’re not seeing anything. But what if she’s right? What if you’re in some kind of danger? Don’t you think you should know?”
“Why would you care?” I began to move away but he grabbed my wrist.
“I care a lot more than you’d like to think.”
Our eyes met briefly but I found I couldn’t hold Jack’s gaze. He dropped my arm and I turned around and headed for the door. I didn’t have to look back to know that he’d picked up my mother’s card and was now carefully placing it inside his wallet.
CHAPTER 2
I was nearly numb by the time I made it to Henderson Realty on Broad Street. I yanked open the door—my anger not completely cooled by the cold—then let it slam behind me.
“Damn.” Our receptionist, Nancy Flaherty, stood with a phone headset on her head with one hand on her hip and the other on a pitching wedge. She frowned at me, having apparently missed a chip shot due to my loud arrival.
“Sorry to interrupt your chipping practice, Nancy. I’ll be more careful next time,” I said as I swept past her, yanking a hanger off the coatrack, my sarcasm completely lost on her. She assumed everybody agreed that golf should replace baseball as the national pastime and would therefore understand that her pursuit of perfection in the game of golf should take precedence over everything else. Including her job. “Do I have any messages?”
She didn’t look up from where she was aligning another shot. “Just your nine o’clock. They’re running a bit late and will be here at nine thirty.”
I squared the shoulders of my coat on the hanger before buttoning up the front so that it would hang straight. “Great, thanks.” I headed toward my office, then turned around and stopped in front of Nancy again. She looked up at me, her club held in midswing.
“One more thing. If Jack Trenholm calls, I’m not here. I don’t want to speak to him. Ever.”
“Again?” she a
sked, lowering her club and focusing on the ball again.
“Excuse me?”
“Right. You’re not here if he calls or stops by. Got it.”
I started walking but she called me back. “And you’re still not here if your mother calls.”
“Exactly. But if she does call and she says she needs a Realtor, transfer her to Jimmy.”
This time Nancy put her club down and turned to me. “Now, Melanie, that isn’t nice.”
“To Jimmy or to my mother?”
Nancy shook her head. “He’s back on medication, you know, following that streaking incident at the Dock Street Theater.”
“Was that before or after he painted his naked body purple and orange and ran out on the field at the last Clemson-USC game?”
“After. He’s a nice guy, but he needs to channel his energy to more productive avenues, I think.” She shook her head. “And even though he somehow manages to be a great Realtor, I certainly don’t think he’s really ready or skilled enough to mix with polite society right now.”
“I know. That’s why I thought he and my mother would be a good fit.” I didn’t wait to hear an answer but instead strode back to my office and shut the door, leaning against it and drawing deep breaths.
Now that I was alone, the enormity of what had just happened at the coffee bar began to sink in. I made my way to my desk chair and fell into it, using my hands against the desk to steady myself. Thirty-three years, I said to myself. It had been thirty-three years since I’d last seen my mother, and then all of a sudden, on an otherwise normal day, she had reappeared in my life. I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes. I wanted to forget the whole episode—the way she looked, the sound of her voice. But her last words kept swirling around my head like a fallen leaf that got swept up into a wind, unsure where to fall. We are not as we seem. I had heard those words before, of course. Recently even, in a phone call, those exact words had been spoken to me by a woman who’d been dead for more than three decades.
The phone on my desk rang, jarring me and reminding me where I was. I picked it up on the third ring.
“Melanie, I have a prospective client on line one for you.”
“Who is it?” I asked, eager to speak to somebody about anything other than dreams, mothers, or phone calls from the dead.
“Her name’s Rebecca Edgerton. She says she’s an old friend of Jack’s. But don’t hold that against her,” Nancy added quickly. “I don’t think she realizes that you’re not on speaking terms with him. Again.”
I sighed heavily into the phone. “Fine. Put her through. Maybe I’ll like her anyway.”
I heard a click and then a soft female voice with definitive Charleston inflections. “Hello? Is this Melanie Middleton?”
“This is she,” I said, curious as to how she knew Jack.
“I’m a reporter with the Post & Courier. I wouldn’t normally call a potential source out of the blue like this, but our mutual friend, Jack Trenholm, said that you were very approachable.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did he now? So can I assume this isn’t about real estate?”
“Um, no. Not exactly. I’m actually doing a piece on famous Charlestonians of the last fifty years, and I wanted to ask you some questions about Ginnette Prioleau Middleton. Your mother.”
I was too surprised to realize I should hang up the phone and instead said nothing.
“To be fair to Jack, I will tell you that he told me that you and your mother have been estranged for a number of years and that you might not be receptive to answering any of my questions. But then Jack told me to mention the readership the paper gets and how people reading that you’re related to the famous opera singer might bring in a lot of business for you.”
My cheeks flamed red at how accurately Jack could read me. My career had been my number one priority for a long time. But he was wrong about this one thing. “Go on,” I said through a tightening throat.
“Even though my story will be about your mother, I thought getting your perspective first would make this an eye-opening piece for my readers. I mean, sure, she’s a world-renowned opera star. But at what personal cost? I understand she abandoned you when you were a little girl to pursue her singing career. That must have made a mark on you.”
We are not as we seem. I swallowed, struggling hard to sound normal. “That’s not—that’s not why she left.”
There was a short pause. “Really? That’s not what I’ve heard. So, why did she leave?”
I thought back to the days after my grandmother Prioleau’s death following a fall down the stairs in her house on Legare Street, and how a darkness had descended over the house and garden, silencing the summer sounds as if we’d suddenly been submerged in water. And then I remembered my mother putting me to bed, her tears hot on my forehead as she leaned over me. She told me that there were things I was too young to understand and too weak to fight, and that sometimes people had to do the right thing even if it meant letting go of the one thing they loved most in the world. I remembered the sound of hushed voices from people who weren’t there; I remembered them because that was the last time I heard them. Then my mother told me that she loved me and kissed me good night. I went to sleep immediately afterward and awoke in the morning to find my father in my room, packing my things and telling me that my mother had gone and that I was going to live with him on an army base in Japan.
I forced myself back to the present. “I don’t know,” I managed. “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”
I was about to hang up when Rebecca spoke again. “Actually, I did. And she told me I should ask your maternal grandmother, a Sarah Manigault Prioleau. But records indicate she’s been deceased since 1975. Do I have that wrong?”
I paused—unsure how to answer—and finally decided on the truth. “No. That’s right. My grandmother died when I was seven years old.”
“Then why would your mother suggest . . .”
“Good-bye, Ms. Edgerton. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
I hung up the phone, my hand lingering on the receiver for a long time as I wondered why, after all this time, my mother had come back—and why she’d brought my grandmother with her.
Despite a productive meeting with my new clients and two accepted counteroffers on houses South of Broad and on Daniel Island respectively, I returned home grumpy and out of sorts. As I pulled into the old carriage house that had been converted into a garage behind my house on Tradd Street, a feeling of calm came over me. Not that I would admit it to anybody, but the dramatic restoration in progress gave me an enormous sense of pride and accomplishment. Having reached this point by accident and by the sheer force of the will of my preservation-minded friends, I was loath to admit to anybody that I actually liked the house and felt at home in it. And that I looked forward to whatever the next project might be.
I spotted Sophie’s lime green Volkswagen Beetle at the curb and smiled to myself. As a professor of historical restoration at the College of Charleston, Dr. Sophie Wallen was not only my best friend, but she was also my right arm in the restoration work on my house. My smile slipped a little as I realized that in addition to being my right arm, she was also my conscience. She would no doubt worm out of me—if Jack hadn’t already told her—what had happened with my mother that morning and then admonish me for not asking my mother to come stay with me while I worked on the purchase of the house on Legare.
With a sigh, I made my way through the garden gate, then up to the front door of the Charleston single house, the buttery light from the fan window above the door spilling onto the floor of the covered front porch like a warm welcome mat. Before I got my key out of my purse, the door flung open and Sophie—her untamed hair swarming around her head like wild bees and covered in what looked like white paint flecks—stood in front of me. “You’re home. Just in time!”
She threw the door open wider and General Lee bounded toward me, yapping excitedly. I dropped my briefcase and purse and swooped him up in my arms, reluctan
t to concede that the little fur ball had grown on me as much as the house had. There was certainly something to say about living with a guy who was always happy to see you, never argued, didn’t leave the toilet seat up, and could keep you warm in bed at night. At almost forty, I’d pretty much reconciled myself to a life of singleness, and I found the companionship of a dog a fair trade-off.
Sophie sneezed. “Sorry—I’ve been keeping him in a different room from me so I wouldn’t have an allergic reaction. It’s not so bad, though.” She sneezed again, accenting her point.
“Let me go put him in the kitchen with Mrs. Houlihan. She always saves a soup bone for him.” I walked to the back of the house and pushed open the kitchen door, depositing General Lee and greeting my housekeeper, yet something else I’d inherited from the home’s former occupant.
I returned to Sophie, who was dabbing at her streaming eyes with the hem of the tie-dyed T-shirt she wore over a long, quilted skirt that brushed the top of her Birkenstocks. Of all the things I liked and appreciated about Sophie, her sense of style wasn’t one of them. I reached over and plucked a paint chip out of her hair. “What’s this?” I asked, holding it up between my fingers.
“You need to come see the upstairs drawing room. You’d hardly recognize it. I’ve been scraping away over a hundred years’ worth of paint from the ceiling cornices and it’s like I’ve discovered heaven.”
I blinked a couple of times, trying to equate ceiling cornices and heaven in my mind before giving up. Instead I just said, “Great. What’s next on the agenda?”
“Refinishing the floors in the whole house. They’ll need to be hand stripped, so it will probably take a while, but I don’t want to see a machine tearing up the wood grain on those beautiful floors.”
