by Lyla Payne
Well, I’d finished grad school. Maybe one out of three isn’t bad.
I rummage through the backseat in search of my necessities, coming up with my toiletry case and yoga pants before finally discovering clean underwear stuffed inside a ratty pair of running shoes. My skull cracks on the car’s frame on my way out, making me rethink the loyalty of my hunk of junk. I pause to rub at the pain and catch myself staring into the woods toward the creek.
Heron Creek is situated around an intracoastal waterway about twenty miles from Charleston. There’s a dock at the back of my grandparent’s five-plus acres, and the town itself has three public access piers.
Even now, I can see Amelia and I streaking into the morning, our bellies full of Grams’s banana-and-honey pancakes. A warm, muggy mist curling around our tiny bodies, lifting us to Mel’s porch down the street, and then sweeping up Will from the big house along the water. We laughed away entire days, lazing in the sun, splashing in the salty river, making up a variety of adventurers that most often ended up in the old graveyard.
I would never have believed when I left my childhood behind that not a single one of their friendships would follow me into the future. My heart split in two at the memory of Will, even though I had been the one to let go.
Mel and Amelia…the miles that separate us are more complicated.
Closing my eyes does nothing to erase the years of memories twirling through the early morning fog. Turning my back helps a bit more, and once the front door clicks shut behind me, I almost believe I’ll be able to shut out the painful days of my past as easily as the piercing sunlight. That I’ll be able to live in Heron Creek and cherry-pick the pieces of the past that comfort, not the ones that remind me that the person I’d dreamed I’d be is not the person the mirror says I’ve become.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but the smell of my hair on the pillow insists I didn’t make it into the shower, or out to unload my car, before stretching out in my old room. The scent of fresh linen—the same laundry detergent and fabric softener Grams used—permeates the crisp, light blue sheets and handmade quilt. The sight of the blues and creams, the gauzy curtains blowing in the salty late-spring breeze, had stolen the last bit of my will to act like a grownup.
My stench, a faint trace of salt and fish, forces me to shift, at least enough to remove my nose from my armpit. Something black shudders in the corner of the room, and I shriek, sitting up and scrambling backward, pulling a fluffy sham to my chest. My heart pounds, and the stink in the room increases, morphs into an unfamiliar odor that’s impossible to place.
No matter how hard I stare into the shadowed recesses of my familiar room, they remain empty.
I shake my head, snorting at my panic. It’s like I’m ten years old again, clutching at sheets and straining to make out invisible faces after a night of Amelia’s impressive retellings of local legends. Like every small Southern town, Heron Creek’s chock full of ghosts. Supposedly. As hard as we’d tried, as many hours as we’d spent in cemeteries, none of us had ever seen one.
The sound of Gramps shuffling around downstairs propels me out of bed and into the bathroom, my legs hot and tingly from the unexpected nap. I’d slept the better part of the past twelve hours, which, while not uncommon for me in the past week, was pretty much unheard of during the six years before that. Not that sleeping drunk in the front seat of a car is particularly restful. Or good on my twenty-five-year-old lower back.
The mirror reveals an atrocious rat’s nest of dark waves and an impressive array of pink crease marks on the right side of my face. My eyes look as though they belong in the face of a girl who drove nineteen hours, guzzled two bottles of gas-station wine, and passed out in the car, so at least the mirror doesn’t lie.
I’m not tempted by the shower, instead choosing to wrestle my hair into a lopsided bun, then brush my teeth and throw on some deodorant. It won’t fool Gramps, but he’s not going to get on me about it. Today. He’s an advice giver but has a knack for knowing when a kind word will help or push me over the edge. I’m already dangling.
Soft snores fill the living room, even though it only took me about fifteen minutes to get downstairs. Gramps’s mouth hangs open, head drooping onto his shoulder while an Atlanta Braves game blares from the television. I turn it down and head into the kitchen, deciding to whip up something fancy, such as grilled cheese sandwiches. He’s awake when I return; I plop a plate of gooey goodness on his lap and a grape soda on the end table next to him, then settle on the couch.
“Have a nice nap?” I ask.
He nods. “How was yours?”
I don’t know why I’m embarrassed about napping mid-morning. Maybe because I’m a girl in my mid-twenties with a doctorate, not an infant. “Yes. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but there’s something about that room. It still smells like Grams.”
“The woman buys the same laundry detergent.”
“I’m pretty sure her name is Laura,” I venture around a steaming bite.
He grunts, swallowing half of his sandwich in a couple of bites, then taking a swig of his soda. “There’s a new couple down the street, invited us to dinner tonight. Not new to me, new to you. Been here about five years.”
“I don’t really want to—”
“Already said we’d be there. I can roll my old ass down the street with my walker alone, if you’d rather.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. What time?”
“Five.”
Old people and their eating habits. I’m going to have to start eating lunch at ten-thirty in the morning if my meals are going to be taken with Gramps and his friends. Which, since I have none of my own and little desire to leave the house, seems likely.
“Braves are winning,” I observe, setting my empty plate on the coffee table and snuggling back into the sagging cushions. They smell like my Grams, too, among other vestiges of the past.
“They’re ahead, sure.”
We watch in silence, the easy togetherness warming me in exactly the way I’d dreamed since deciding to come back here. He doesn’t ask me what happened with David, why there’s a pale ring of skin on my finger instead of the flashy diamond I’d worn to Grams’s funeral. I don’t bug him about his diet, or needle him about being nicer to his cleaning-slash-laundry-slash-grocery-shopping woman.
There are a million questions surrounding me, waiting not so patiently on the sofa at my hips and thighs, that need to be answered. What I’m going to do with myself, with my graduate degree in Archival Studies here in Heron Creek. When I’m going to take a good hard look at my part in what happened in Iowa City, because there’s always two sides. Whether I’ll be able to live here without falling so deep into the past there’s no way to generate a future. But for this afternoon there is acceptance from Gramps, and the scents of my childhood, and these things allow me to pretend those little piles of insistent words and letters don’t peer up at me.
And the Braves. There’s always them, too.
Chapter Two
By the time five o’clock rolls around, I’d rather be anywhere but on the Freedman’s’ front porch—anywhere else. Preferably my bed, though.
According to the brief two sentences Gramps shared regarding his new friends on our walk, they’re recently retired, have two sons that live down around Atlanta, and he enjoys their company. When a perky, makeup-slathered face and perfectly coiffed hair appear on the other side of the screen door, it makes me wonder whether Gramps has started to go senile.
Of course, since I prefer no company, it’s not like anyone would have excited me.
Mrs. Freedman’s lips are painted a bright, berry fuchsia and spread wide at the sight of us. The scent of her perfume tries its best to push me backward off the porch. “Martin! It’s so lovely to see you, we’re so glad you were able to come.” Her wide, dark eyes shift to me. “You must be his granddaughter. We’ve heard so much about you!”
“Ain’t she as pretty as I said, Meredith?”
“Gramps, sheesh
. Stop.”
“No, you are, dear. Simply beautiful, and he talks about you all the time.” She extends a hand my direction, pumping and pulling me forward into the house at the same time.
It hurts, this interaction. The stimulation. The quiet of my own thoughts has filed down my nerves, exhausted my tolerance for faking normal, but if I’m going to get along in Heron Creek without getting tossed into the loony bin, learning to at least fake it will serve me well.
My teeth grind together, but muscle memory finds me a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Roger! The rest of our guests are here already. They’re a nice young couple that you’re just going to love. Come and say hello!”
The rest of her guests? Crap on a cracker, more people.
Gramps meets my gaze, his blue eyes sharp and full of concern. Maybe I’m fooling Meredith Freedman with my faux relaxed friendliness, but he knows better. His presence soothes me with an ease born from years of practice, and I do my best to calm down. It’s just people. I used to love them all, the way Gramps does.
A balding man rounds the corner, wearing the retirement uniform of khaki shorts, a colored polo, and Sperrys. His smile is as big and genuine as his wife’s, his handshake a little weaker but no less enthusiastic. “Hello, Martin! How’re you feeling?”
“Still vertical!” Gramps quips, appearing stronger this evening than he had this morning. His voice booms the way it does in the cobwebbed corners of my mind, his presence curling out to fill the corners of the rooms.
“And you must be Graciela. We’re so happy to welcome you to Heron Creek.”
“Back to Heron Creek,” I reply absently, my mind still stuck on who might be in the kitchen. Whether I know them or they know me. If Mrs. Walters has already gotten to them with rumors of my drunkenness.
Mr. Freedman’s brow wrinkles, but his smile doesn’t falter. “I’m sorry. I was under the impression you were from Iowa.”
“I went to college in Iowa. I was raised there but spent every summer here between the ages of six and eighteen. This is pretty much home, to me.” I soften my slew of words, which sound kind of lecturey even to me, with a shrug. “But thank you.”
“Of course. You might know our other dinner guests then—they’re about your age.”
“Roger, I think you may want to check on the meat—” The man—it’s a man, I realize, not a boy—stops short when he sees the Freedmans are no longer alone.
When he sees me.
My heart stops beating, and the shock wraps a thick down pillow around my head. It blocks reality, slows my thoughts until my ears register sounds as far away, a million packed-together feathers between me and the rest of the scene. The Freedman’s’ other guests, the nice young couple, is one-half William Gayle.
Which means the other half is Melanie.
Our eyes stick together, his dusky blue gaze swirling with the same confusion somersaulting through me, tearing me apart in the process. I haven’t seen Will since the summer after high school graduation. Since he asked me to stay and I said no, since I took it one step further—a final step, off a cliff—and said college would be better for both of us without any attachment holding us hostage.
“Gracie.” His lips taste my name, roll it around in a way that’s familiar but also strange. As if it’s a drink he doesn’t like but takes another sip because a friend promises it’s an acquired flavor.
I want to reply, to diffuse the tension crackling in the room with so much force we’re probably about to give the old folks a triplet of heart attacks, but the feathers drift down, coat my tongue.
“William, boy, it’s good to see you.” Gramps swoops in, rescuing me, at least for the moment.
Will tears his attention from me with what looks like effort. He shakes his head once, then twice, and finally digs out a genuine smile for Gramps, along with an embrace. “Gramps. I didn’t know you were coming tonight! You should have told me, and we could have picked you up.”
“Got Gracie to babysit now, so you and the boy are off the hook.”
The boy?
As though on cue, two more blond heads round the corner. One, a shiny dirty blonde bob, belongs to the former Melanie Massie. We’d become fast friends at six, during my first summer in Heron Creek, and her, Amelia, and I had shared everything. Of course, we’d never dreamed that would include Will.
The second head only comes up to my knees. It belongs to a little boy who can’t be older than two. He sports a head of cornstarch curls that came from Will, but his chocolate brown eyes are a gift from his mother.
If forming words in the face of Will is impossible, this is something else. I know they have a kid, but meeting him hasn’t been on my list of things to do. Ever. The ring on Mel’s finger catches the light from the declining sun as it streams through the screen behind me, winking at me as though to say, see what you threw away, Gracie? And what do you have now?
Nothing. You have nothing.
The kid stares up at me, the stranger, and pops a finger in his mouth. I don’t know anything about kids, not things like when they talk or can carry on conversations or whatever, but since this one walks he can probably say a few things. He’s fucking adorable, like some kind of toddling angel.
Melanie finds her voice, her face white at the sight of me. “Gracie. We had no idea you were coming to visit.” She’s the same ol’ sweet, friendly Mel, and nothing feels off about her reaction. Not until she shoots Will a suspicious glance. “We didn’t know she was coming to visit, right?”
“He didn’t know,” I clarify, finding my voice. It sounds as far away as everything else, but other than that, fine. “And I’m not visiting. I’m here to take care of Gramps.”
“You’re staying?” Will’s strangled question earns him the focus of everyone standing awkwardly in the foyer, and his cheeks turn red.
It almost makes me smile, the reminder of how easy it is to embarrass him. We had fun with that on more than a few occasions, but today I take pity on him. Because the responsibility for this mess rests mostly on my shoulders, maybe, but it’s best not to examine my feelings too closely right now.
“And who’s this?” I ask, forcing a perkiness into my voice that hasn’t been there naturally since I discovered sarcasm around the age of eight. It’s not easy to look at his kid, at this tiny replica of the boy I was supposed to marry, but squatting down to his level relieves me of facing either of his parents.
Mel’s hand, that damn ring sparkling, toys with his curls. “This is Grant. Grant, honey, can you say hello to Aunt Gracie?”
My stomach tangles like two ropes twisting together in a ship’s rigging—one love, one hate. Love, because it’s so Mel to act as though no time has passed. As though she didn’t marry my first love. Hate, because it had, and she did, and I don’t want to be a part of this kid’s life.
“Hi,” he says, soft but clear.
“How old are you, kid?”
He holds up two fingers with a solemn, serious expression that’s so much like his dad’s that it breaks me in half.
“Two? Wow.” It’s all I can do, and I straighten up before he notices the tears in my eyes. My throat burns, as though someone poured gasoline down it, then struck a match.
“So, you all know each other?” Meredith Freedman asks the dumbest question in the history of dumb questions, but it breaks the tension, which has pulled so tight my cheeks hurt.
“We grew up together, Meredith.” It’s Melanie again, the only one of us that has regular access to her tongue.
“How lovely.”
It’s all I can do not to snort.
“Roger, how about we go check on those steaks? I’m afraid to leave them alone with you for too long.”
Roger laughs at Gramps’s comment and gestures him through the living room. The sound of the clumping walker disappears beneath a child’s voice, and I look down to find Grant tugging on the hem of Mel’s dress.
“Mommy, I have to potty.”
“Okay, baby.” She sweeps him up onto her hip and smiles at me. For some reason, it makes my throat burn even hotter. “Welcome back, Graciela.”
Mrs. Freedman walks Mel and the kid out of the foyer, leaving me alone with Will. It seems I was wrong earlier today about never having seen a ghost in Heron Creek, no matter the stories.
Now I have, and he’s mine alone.
“When did you get back?”
“Just this morning.”
Silence. Then, “It’s good you’re here. Gramps…he’s not doing too well.”
“What do you mean?” We’re having a conversation as though it hasn’t been a lifetime since the last one. As though we’re robots programmed to default to the last known setting. At least, I feel that way.
“I take Grant by and see him on Tuesday nights, when Mel’s in school. We bring dinner, watch a game or play cards. He tries to hide how bad off he is, and he fools most people, but he shouldn’t be alone.”
Guilt gushes through me until it lands in my stomach. The idea of eating dinner is less desirable than ever. I shouldn’t have stayed away as long as I have, knowing that Aunt Karen is a dubious caretaker at best. Alongside the shame spurts a geyser of irritation at Amelia. She’s better than her mother.
At least, she used to be.
“I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until…you know.” Tears sting my eyes, refusing to obey my demand to stay away now that my audience is smaller. Or maybe because it’s just Will. “I can’t imagine not having him.”
“Me either, Gracie. The whole town’s going to grieve, you know that.”
I nod, swallowing hard and stepping around him toward the living room.
“Listen, Grace…”
It’s too much, the tone in his voice. The one that promises he’s about to say something I don’t want to hear, can’t handle. Some stupid platitude about how things worked out the way they were supposed to, or no hard feelings, or he hopes all three of us can find a way to be friends again.
