A Ghost of a Chance

by Cherie Claire

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  I plop my purse on the couch and give her a kiss on one cheek. “Wow, Mom, I would expect something more original for a Shakespeare professor.”

  “And I would expect my daughter to care what happens to her mother.” She huffs and disappears into the kitchen and I, like the obedient daughter I used to be, follow her to get the verbal thrashing over with. My mom’s dressed in a blue suit with semi-high heels and an apron, stirring a pot of something that smells heavenly.

  “Gumbo?”

  My mother never was much of a cook, relied on Sebastian’s culinary talents and the local take-outs for our sustenance. But she makes a damn good gumbo, now that the requisite roux comes in a jar and all one must do is add the trinity — onions, bell peppers and celery — and whatever meat you choose. My mother prefers chicken and Andouille sausage.

  “Your sister went to get French bread and your brother’s due any minute. I didn’t have a problem reaching either of them.”

  I steal a piece of lettuce from the salad bowl, realizing I’m starving. “That’s funny because my dear twin Sebastian never answers me.”

  She turns at this point, roux spoon perched on her hip, and looks at me sternly. “You didn’t lose a tenured professorship at Tulane only to have to commute to a community college in Baton Rouge. I’m teaching English 101 now! At the community college! And the man who did my roof? There’s a leak in the hall bathroom.”

  I’m too stunned to speak, don’t even know where to begin. But what did I expect? I love my family, I truly do, but their narcissism drives me insane and after the week I had… I grab a beer from the refrigerator and pop it open. “Sorry Mom,” I manage and head for the living room.

  “That’s it? Sorry Mom?”

  I fall into the couch and stare at the floor. “New carpeting?”

  Thankfully, this derails her. “Of course. We had water damage from the roof.”

  “In the game room.”

  She stands over me like a sentinel. “It had to match.”

  “Of course,” I repeat, taking a long sip of my beer and trying not to remember what my house looked like after the storm and the baby steps it’s taking to bring it to livable status, thanks to our slow moving insurance company. I say my house; it’s TB’s now.

  My mom’s eyes narrow. She’s not used to me being this confident. Usually, I wallow at her feet and give her what she wants. “What happened?”

  When I look up I find my mother staring at me as if she senses something’s wrong, that she actually cares. And truth be told, she really does, was constantly by my side when Lillye died. She just lets all that self-centeredness get in the way.

  I’m debating whether to let down my guard and talk about my problems when Portia enters the house, her belly crossing the threshold before she does, followed by three-year-old Demetrius (it’s a girl, Demi for short; she’s continuing the Shakespeare tradition). When my greatly pregnant sister sees me sprawled on the couch, feet splayed on the coffee table, beer in my right hand, she gives me a stare worthy of our mother. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  I can’t help but laugh. And I’m the least intelligent member of this family?

  Portia drops the bag containing French bread like it’s a sack of bricks, placing her hands at her lower back to stretch. She’s looking for help, sympathy, who knows what, and sitting between these two attention whores leaves me speechless, considering the horrid week I just had.

  “I know you’ve been on vacation which must have been so tiring but do you think you can help out here?”

  Ordinarily I would grind my teeth and pitch in, appease the family members while stewing over the experience for weeks. Not today. “You’re right Portia, I did have an exhausting week because I was working the whole time. Thanks for noticing.” I look up and give her a smug smile. “I’m sure you can handle one loaf of French bread.”

  Mom smacks me on the arm with the roux spoon. “You should help your sister.”

  Portia pulls the plastic bag carrying the bread on to her elbow, then picks up Demi — who’s quite happy climbing on the living room furniture and doesn’t need a lift — and sighs heavily as she follows mom into the kitchen. “Great,” I think, “back to being by myself.”

  The two of them are mumbling in the kitchen, no doubt about me and my selfishness, so I down the rest of the beer. It’s then that I notice there’s a box on the floor by my feet with my name written on the side. I pull the top open and find a note and a set of Bentonville mugs.

  “Mom, did TB come by?”

  “Why don’t you come in here and help us, maybe we’d tell you,” Portia yells back.

  I open the note and TB has written:

  Vi,

  Got home okay but you’ve probably figured that out by now. Ha, ha. Here are those things that you wanted me to bring home for you. Hope you don’t mind but the hotel manager insisted I pick out a polo shirt for you too. It’s on the bottom. I swear he insisted!”

  I pull out a gorgeous blue shirt with the hotel’s logo on it, glance around to make sure no one’s looking and pull it on so I no longer smell like I’ve been on the road for a week. It’s a lovely shirt, fits me perfectly and I wish I had been kinder to TB about accepting the graft. The rest of the note adds to the guilt.

  I miss you, Vi. Always will. I know you have to do what you have to do but please always remember how much I love you. We are connected through a love and a grief that people will never be able to understand. For that alone, we need each other. No matter what you decide going forward, I am and always will be your friend. TB

  I look at the ceiling to fight off the tears. Damn that man.

  PS, that cop you think is so cute called me. (He’s a bit of an ass if you ask me.) He lost your card and he somehow remembered my name. Anyway, he said to tell you that the groundskeeper moved to Pennsylvania after the murders, then showed up in Washington two months later, so there was two months in between where they can’t place him and it was about the time of Annabelle’s murder. Does that make sense to you? Call me if you want me to explain more.

  I sit up and that familiar buzzing returns, although I’m hundreds of miles from Lori and the Crescent Hotel. Did Gene Tanner return to Eureka Springs and kill Lori? Why? I’m raking my brain trying to make sense of this when who should waltz in the door but my brat twin brother. “Hey girl!” he announces as if he hasn’t been away for months and ignoring me.

  I can’t help myself. I smugly say, “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  He plants a kiss on the top of my head and heads toward the kitchen. “That’s original. Is there more of that beer?”

  I hear my mom and sister greet him with delight and the old jealousy emerges. Always the odd person out in this family. “I’m not going there,” I command myself, although it’s harder this time to believe it. I gaze into the box to see if I missed anything and there on the bottom lies another envelope with TB’s handwriting exclaiming, “Look what I found!” I gingerly open the envelope and find a baby blue stone inside, my angelite from the cave in Alabama.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper as I close my fingers around it tight and feel it humming within my grip.

  “What’s that?” Sebastian joins me in the living room, stretching out in the easy chair opposite me, sipping a beer.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  He looks injured and confused. “Working in Atlanta.”

  “You never answer my texts or emails.”

  He shrugs and smiles like I’m saying something ridiculous and I want to slap him. “I’m a chef, Vi. We work all the time.”

  For years Sebastian was my best friend, my confidant, the jester who made me laugh when Mom gave me a hard time, when Dad left. We shared a womb, then a childhood together, followed by weathering a bitter divorce. But now that he’s been on The Food Network and named one of the city’s Top Chefs by Big Easy magazine, I rarely see the man. And it hurts deeply.<
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  “Know what I did this week?” he asks, not waiting for an answer. “I cooked for the CEO of Delta Airlines on his private jet.”

  “That’s great,” I say half-heartedly. This is the new Sebastian, the one that talks non-stop about his cool jobs and the famous people he meets.

  “Half the plane were celebrities,” Sebastian says and starts naming them. Yep, there it is.

  “I started my new career as a travel writer,” I say, leaving out the part of it crashing and burning. “Went to northwest Arkansas on my first trip.”

  “Arkansas?” Sebastian says with a sneer. “Wow. How exciting.”

  “Actually it was.” Snob.

  “Oh,” Sebastian says, pulling something from his breast pocket, “as a tip, the CEO gave me a voucher for a roundtrip plane ticket anywhere in the U.S. On Delta, of course. I was thinking of Hawaii but I have a couple of friends throwing a party this weekend in Key West. Can’t decide.”

  “You’re leaving already?”

  He completely ignores the meaning behind that question, that I miss him and want him to stay and spend time with me. “I have to check flights and see. If I can’t get out in the morning, I’ll probably stay a couple of days and go to Hawaii.” He finishes the beer and rises, points his bottle at me. “Want another?”

  I shake my head and watch him leave, feeling my confidence leak out my pores. Funny how those who say they love you the most make you feel like crap.

  I rub the stone still lying in my palm and ask for help. Aunt Mimi said those on the other side would come running if I did. I hear nothing and am about to slide back into that familiar darkness I’ve called home for so long when I see Lillye — or imagine I do — dancing around Meredith’s rock shop in Eureka Springs. She’s happy and carefree, as Aunt Mimi described her, but she pauses next to a shelf of baby blue stones. She looks back at me and puts her hands on her hips. “Mom,” she says as if I’m failing to see what’s in front of me.

  The image disappears as fast as it arrived and directly in my line of vision is Sebastian’s voucher lying on the coffee table. “Thank you” I whisper to Lillye and the universe, grab my purse, the voucher and slip out the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m cradling my coffee outside Merrill’s shop, waiting for ten a.m. to roll around. By the time I had reached the New Orleans airport and caught the first flight to Atlanta, it had been close to five o’clock so I ended up in Bentonville as they shut down the airport. I stayed the night in a cheap motel in Rogers, amazed at the irony of me escaping the very scenario only to return and do it anyway. At least I didn’t have to face Richard this time.

  I rented a car, determined not to care that I was driving up the credit card I worked so hard to clean out, and drove over to Eureka Springs first thing in the morning. I paused along the way at a mountainside diner and enjoyed a huge breakfast of eggs, country ham, biscuits and grits while I watched hummingbirds flit about the patio feeders and fog drift lazily across the Ozarks.

  I had purposely ignored my phone the whole trip but over breakfast decided to check my messages. And there were plenty: Sebastian furious that I stole his voucher, Mom “disappointed and hurt” that I didn’t stay for supper and Portia fussing because she didn’t want to be excluded and oh, by the way, could I babysit Demi next week? I texted the three of them, “I love you too” and threw the phone in my purse, grinning, which made the waitress smile while she poured me another cup of coffee.

  “Having a great day?” she asked.

  I smiled back. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She gave me a lovely coffee to go and here I now sit in the still damp Crescent Hotel Polo I managed to wash out last night. I’m waiting for Merrill to arrive, staring at that damn Hanged Man gracing her window.

  I flip him the bird.

  A light comes on inside the store but it’s only nine-thirty so I hesitate to knock. I peer inside, though, and see an elderly woman in a flowing rose kimono over jeans who’s opening up the cash register. She notices me before I’m able to pull back and she heads for the door, sticking her head out slightly. “We don’t open until ten.”

  “I know. I was waiting for Merrill.”

  The lady opens the door wider. “Can I help you with something?”

  Suddenly, I see the resemblance and my instincts prove me right. Of course, why hadn’t I put these clues together before?

  “You’re Merrill’s mom.”

  Now the door opens wide and the woman studies me intently. “Do I know you?”

  I shake my head and hold out my hand. “No ma’am. I’m Viola Valentine, one of the travel writers who was here this past week.”

  She takes my hand in her right, then cradles our greeting with her left. She’s genuine, this Southern lady, all etiquette and warmth. “Annie Seligman. I heard all about you. You’re the one who saw those poor girls.”

  “Yep, that’s me.”

  Annie releases my hand and heads into the store, motioning for me to follow. “There’s a big story about those poor girls in the paper today. Come on in. I have a copy.”

  I follow and spot that row of angelite on the center display case, like I had witnessed in my vision with Lillye, and goosebumps run up my spine.

  “Are you cold?” Annie asks, as she flips through some papers on the counter. “I can turn up the heat. It looks like warm weather hasn’t arrived after all.”

  “No thank you ma’am, I have a sweater.” I’m loving the crisp spring air, knowing that my oppressive Louisiana summer is right around the bend.

  Annie finds the newspaper and holds it up proudly. The article states that a decades-old mystery involving the disappearance of three young coeds has been solved, accented by the manly face of Madman Maddox speaking at a podium. Of course, he gets all the credit, but then what would I have added to the story? Mentioning ghosts was something we had all avoided.

  “Cool.” I take the newspaper from Annie’s outstretched hands and pretend to read. I really don’t care at this point. When I feel her gaze staring at me, I look up and find she’s studying me intently.

  “Did you really see those girls? Merrill said you can see ghosts.”

  Annie doesn’t appear distrustful or defiant so I assume I’m on safe ground. But then what would you expect from the mother of rock-loving, New Age following, anti-establishment Merrill Seligman, aka Cassiopeia? “Yes ma’am, I did see them. But I don’t see all ghosts, just those who have died by water.”

  “That’s incredible.” Again, she’s genuinely impressed and for once I’m glad to be a SCANC. Sort of.

  “I’m hoping so. It’s been rather crazy so far.”

  With that thought, I hand her back the newspaper and take a long drink from my coffee, gathering up courage. Standing before me is the woman holding answers to the bigger mystery of Eureka Springs. I venture forth, “By any chance are you adopted?”

  The blood drains from Annie’s face and that affable demeanor disappears. Either I hit a nerve or said an inappropriate thing for Annie stares at me like a zombie and the papers in her hands begin to rattle. I’m about to apologize and explain when the door swings open and Merrill strides through, wearing a loose-fitting dress made of some organic material like hemp and a bright pink scarf tossed about her aka Grace Kelly. The apple didn’t fall far.

  “I thought you left,” Merrill says when she spies me in the center of her store. “They said you checked out.”

  “I did. I came back.” Why is everything I’m saying this morning sounding so incredibly bizarre?

  Merrill looks at me puzzled, then spots the confused look on her mother’s face and grows concerned. “What’s going on?”

  “Um.” I start to explain but Annie raises her left hand and stops me.

  “Merrill, sweetie, we need to talk.”

  Now, Merrill’s face pales. “Did something happen? What’s going on?”

  “Why don’t we all sit down?” Annie suggests and she motions for us to take seats in the comfy c
hairs by the store’s bay window, making sure the front door is locked on her way over. Annie gets comfortable and takes Merrill’s hand in hers and places both in her lap. “Remember that letter your grandfather wrote to that girl named Annabelle? The one you borrowed to show this nice young lady?”

  Merrill glances at me briefly, then back at her mom. “Yeah.”

  “Well, it got me to thinking. When you mentioned the name of Caballero, well I was sure I had seen that name somewhere in your grandfather’s things.”

  I’ll bet you have, I think to myself, but keep quiet.

  “There were some letters from Ohio to a James Caballero but they were written in Italian so I never gave them much thought, assumed they were a constituent of my dad’s when he was mayor — or something like it. Still, it got my curiosity up so I kept looking.”

  “Did you find out who he was?” Merrill asks, looking over at me and no doubt remembering what I had told her about James.

  Annie places both hands over Merrill’s, like she did mine at our greeting. “I’m afraid, my dear, that Caballero was my real father. I’m adopted, you see.”

  Merrill exhales the tension she’s been holding since we first sat down and leans back in her chair. “Oh Mom, I don’t think you understand.”

  Annie continues as if she hadn’t heard what Merrill has said. “Caballero and his wife must have been immigrants fresh off the boat and not able to care for me, possibly a friend or family member of your grandfather’s. Or perhaps it was something worse. Neither of my parents said a word about this my whole life. I never for a moment thought I wasn’t theirs.”

  Merrill and I both know who James Caballero really is, and what he did, but Merrill doesn’t want to rush her mother into the truth. She sighs again, gazing over at me for support. “Why do you think this Caballero guy is your dad?”

  Annie releases her daughter’s hand and crosses her arms about her as if chilled. “I found a birth certificate hidden deep inside my grandfather’s desk that had me born to different parents. It had all the same information listed — my birthdate, etc. — but was from an out-of-state hospital and of course different names for parents.”