Hauntings of the Heart

by Joselyn Vaughn

  * * *

  Gordon was still sitting in Minnie’s living room when Mark returned. Minnie’s abrupt exit had confirmed she hadn’t forgiven him for not telling her himself about his family’s ruin. He supposed it wouldn’t be simple. Show up. Smile. Pretend like those years hadn’t passed. He hadn’t expected to still be in love with her after so long, but he couldn’t deny it. After having a wife, children, and grandchildren, he still loved Minnie.

  His first sight of her—before she’d slammed the door in his face—had been shocking. The passage of time had altered her appearance, but she still exuded energy and spirit. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let go. At first he thought it was simply seeing her again. But no. This wasn’t the memory of love. His heart pumped with new energy simply being around her. He kicked himself for not fighting for her the first time. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  How that would jive with the rest of his plans, he didn’t dare speculate. But he couldn’t abandon his mother, or Minnie. The same tight spot as fifty years ago—a problem he couldn’t find his way out of.

  Mark dropped the plastic garbage can on the floor and scooped rubble into it.

  Gordon jumped up to help him. It wasn’t his house, but he couldn’t allow it to fall apart any more than he already had. Why had he waited so long to come back? Family obligations paled in comparison to Minnie. He wished…well, he’d done a lot of that over the years, and he could think of better ways to fill his pockets. Now it was time to act. Just how, he wasn’t quite sure.

  Gordon dumped a dustpan full of broken plaster into the bin. “Your mother hasn’t changed much, has she?”

  Mark gave him a questioning look. “How do you know my mother?”

  Gordon’s head jerked up. Hadn’t she been in the room with them? Maybe Mark wondered how they’d met, the history of their relationship. “I’ve known her since we were knee high to a grasshopper.”

  Mark scrunched his eyebrows. “She never mentioned you.”

  Gordon hoped Mark attributed his wince to an aching back instead of wounded pride. Perhaps he had meant less to Minnie than he wished. “I haven’t been in town for quite a while. This is the first time I’ve been back since my family had to move.”

  Mark seemed to accept his answer—not typical of a Carterville resident. Events and gossip had always spread faster than the operator could connect the phone lines. It grew and changed every step of the way. On one side of town, you fell down the stairs and skinned your knee, but by the time word reached the other side, you’d been pushed by your sister and had cracked your head open.

  Gordon hadn’t really known what to expect when he returned to town. He hadn’t corresponded with anyone. When his family had left, things had been chaotic and he’d been trying to keep the sordid details hush-hush. His correspondence with friends in Carterville had deteriorated under the weight of all he couldn’t talk about. It had eventually stopped.

  As his family’s situation worsened, joining Minnie in the Peace Corps had become out of the question. His mother and sisters had needed him at home. Everything had been so tumultuous; he couldn’t sit down and write Minnie more than a brief note. He couldn’t figure out how to put the words he wanted onto paper. With each letter he’d written, he’d promised himself next week he would tell her all the humiliating details.

  Then her letters had stopped. He figured she’d heard all the sordid details from someone else. She’d rejected him.

  He’d never heard from her again. Every day, he’d checked the mailbox, anticipating the thin, light blue, airmail envelope with Minnie’s handwriting adorning it. He’d hoped she would forgive him. That nothing would change between them.

  But no letter ever came. After a year, he’d stopped going to the mailbox. He’d sent one of his sisters.

  His regrets boiled as he remembered. He should have waited, should have ignored his mother’s demands. Found another solution. He wouldn’t have had to put himself, and Ann, through so much pain.

  Gordon straightened. His back ached. He hadn’t done this kind of work in years. “Do you do all the repairs here?”

  Mark paused in his sweeping. “Most of them. Minnie helped me get my construction business off the ground.”

  Gordon smiled to himself. How like Minnie, encouraging others to step into the unknown and follow their dreams. Minnie was the one that defied tradition and did her own thing. He stuck to the expectations of family and heritage. They’d complimented each other well. He’d kept her safe, she’d helped him soar.

  Gordon lifted a cushion off the couch and brushed the gravelly plaster into the garbage. If only the errors of the past could be disposed of so easily.

  He pressed the cushion back onto the couch, noting how similar the pattern was to the settee that had once graced his mother’s parlor. A lot had changed at the Lilac Bower, yet it surprised him how Minnie had incorporated his mother’s traditions with her own tastes. Like the delicate flowered china with the modern metal sculptures. As if it was all a part of the natural evolution of the house.

  “Sounds like the Minnie I remember. She was always helping someone out.” Gordon gestured to the room. “It’s amazing how well everything has been kept up.”

  Mark laughed. “You wouldn’t think that if you had seen it before Minnie got her hands on it. It needed some serious TLC before it deteriorated completely. Luckily, Minnie wanted to restore the old charm. When she sets her mind to something, she’s like a cat-five hurricane—there’s no point standing in her way. I would have put the place in the back of This Old House. One of those houses they sell for a dollar.”

  Gordon grimaced. “How bad was it?” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question. One more way he’d let his mother down.

  “I went through every inch with her before she bought it,” Mark replied. “The building is structurally sound. The roof is good. Needs new shingles next year, but the house isn’t going to fall down.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Well, maybe I misjudged that.”

  The queasiness in Gordon’s stomach eased a bit. At least the house hadn’t become a blight on the community, something that needed to be bulldozed. Minnie had cared enough to restore it. “What kind of things did you have to do?”

  “Lots of cosmetic things.” Mark pulled up the edges of the bag in the trashcan and gave them a twist. “The previous owners only fixed things when they had to, and did the work themselves. But they never really finished projects. Trim pieces were missing, plaster patches falling out. All the windows had been painted shut. The carpeting needed to be replaced and the wood floors refinished. Every project led to two others. ” Mark yanked on the garbage bag. Gordon hurried over and grabbed the garbage can as Mark tugged the bag out. “Somehow we never discovered the plumbing was this bad. I suppose the bathrooms upstairs must be newer than this stuff.” Mark added the bag to the growing pile by the rear door.

  Gordon shook out a new bag and lined the can with it.

  “What brings you back to town?” Mark asked when he returned.

  Gordon straightened and studied the young man. He wondered who Minnie had married. He didn’t see echoes of any of his childhood friends in Mark’s face. But he was happy for her. Minnie couldn’t and shouldn’t have spent all those years alone. She had too much to share with the world. She deserved more grandchildren.

  “Some family business,” he said finally. “I thought it’d only take a day or two, but it’s running longer than I expected.” Perhaps because he was no longer sure which pursuit was more important—easing his mother’s final days, or restoring his relationship with Minnie.

  “So you’re planning an extended stay?” Minnie stood in the doorway, her phone pressed to her chest. Despite her waterlogged clothing, she didn’t appear to be weighed down. In fact, it accentuated her regal stature. As he remembered, Minnie never succumbed to her circumstances.

  “Don’t rightly know, but a few weeks for sure,” Gordon replied, straightening his bac
k slowly. Her presence was like a light in a dark room. He couldn’t help but be drawn to her.

  “I see.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. It didn’t look like he was any closer to being forgiven. “It’s helpful to know for other bookings.” She propped the phone between her shoulder and ear, and jotted something in a notebook she’d held tucked under her arm. “This weekend will be fine. Yes. We’ll look for you Friday.” She punched a button on the phone, then placed the notebook and phone on the side table.

  “More guests?” Mark asked.

  Minnie nodded. “Someone interested in the haunted house weekend. I knew it would work.” She checked her watch. “The Friends of the Library fundraising committee will be here any minute. I’ve got to get changed.” Minnie scurried around the ladder and tools and ducked into her bedroom.

  “Even when she doesn’t have guests, Minnie always has something going on here,” Mark said. “Board meetings, fundraising, retirement parties.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work. But the Minnie I remember was always on her feet.” Like my mother, Gordon added to himself. If a board needed to be chaired, his mother was there to get it organized, and she’d have coerced a full committee by the end of the day.

  Mark scraped the last of the rubble into his dustpan. “Best figure out what I’ll need to repair this pipe.”

  “If I can be of some help, I grew up here. I know the house.” He would like to get to know Minnie’s son. He needed to figure out how to restore his relationship with her, as she had restored his house. Becoming acquainted with her son could help fill in the answers Minnie herself wouldn’t provide. He didn’t know how this would work out with his other plans, but it was just as important.

  Besides, Mark seemed like a nice young man, and hopefully he wouldn’t mind an old codger hanging around. Gordon was handy enough with a pipe wrench—he wouldn’t be in the way. Perhaps if he endeared himself to Mark, he’d have a better chance of proving himself to Minnie.

  Mark was quite a bit younger than his own children, so Minnie must have waited a long time to have a family of her own. Had she waited for him to come back? He threw the thought away. Why would she wait for him if she wouldn’t even answer his letters? He wished he had waited, but one could only endure so much loss. He’d had to add something, keep his household from disintegrating any further. He could have searched for Minnie, but when she’d stopped answering his letters, he’d figured she didn’t want to be associated with the Andersons’ betrayal of the community. He couldn’t keep it all secret. Surely someone had gossiped all the humiliating details.

  Still, he shouldn’t have let her go so easily. He loved his children and grandchildren dearly and wouldn’t trade them, but his time with Ann hadn’t been the happiest time of his life. He’d always felt like he and Ann had just been making do. That relationship had never compared to the months before Minnie had left—their excitement for the future, their plans to travel the globe, start a family. They’d been about to start it all, when everything had fallen apart.

  Minnie emerged from her bedroom, dressed in a cream sweater and gray wool slacks. Her ivory hair had been brushed smooth. No one would know she’d been shoveling broken plaster a half-hour ago. She nodded to them as she straightened the waistband of her sweater. She looked amazing, and Gordon barely kept himself from following her as she made her way out of the room and down the hall.

  “We’ll have to measure the pipe and see what fittings we need.”

  Gordon stared after her, not hearing a word Mark said until the man snapped his fingers.

  “Are you okay?”

  Gordon shook himself. “Yes, I’m fine. We’ll, uh…need some drywall to patch the hole.” He was anxious to help keep the place in shape, and was glad Mark had included him. The thought crossed his mind he couldn’t have his cake and eat it too, but he’d worry about that when someone offered him a plate.

  “Right.” Mark descended the ladder. “I’ll get the rest of my tools from the truck, and some drop cloths from the garage, and we can get started.”

  7

  Minnie ushered Edith and Dinah into the parlor off the foyer. Edith took a seat on the sofa, while Dinah chose a chair close to the refreshment tray. They greeted Betty and Yvonne, the other two members of the Friends of the Library fundraising committee already waiting there.

  “Any more news on our mysterious gentleman?” Edith asked as she reached for a cup and poured herself some coffee from the insulated carafe.

  Dinah surveyed the assorted cookies before selecting a slice of shortbread. “You mean Gordon Anderson, right? Did you find out anything? Why’s he here?”

  Minnie stared into her half-filled cup. “He was married.”

  “What?” Dinah and Edith practically leapt across the table. “When? Here? Could we sabotage the wedding?”

  Minnie shot a glance down the hall. The door to her apartment was closed, but if Dinah and Edith got any louder, Mark and Gordon would hear this whole conversation. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the few details she’d gleaned from Gordon the other day. She hadn’t established when or if he was still hitched, and who the lucky lady was. And lucky she had to be. The Gordon Minnie had fallen in love with had been a great catch. The Gordon currently living under her roof was still one. Handsome, caring, helpful—all the things she’d loved about him then. It made all that had happened in between even more perplexing.

  “He isn’t here to get married.” She scrunched up her brow. “At least I don’t think so. He’s been married, has children and grandchildren.”

  Edith and Dinah gasped. “How could he?”

  Minnie shrugged. “Obviously, he wasn’t pining away for me.” She snapped a napkin from the table and plastered it across her lap.

  “Like you were for him?” Dinah asked. Edith slapped her arm with the back of her hand.

  Minnie scowled at them. “I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t pining away. Sheesh.”

  Edith and Dinah shared a look, then turned it on Minnie. Minnie knew that look; she’d been a party to it more times than she could count. She didn’t like being on the receiving end. She didn’t need to be a part of their matchmaking schemes.

  “Since everyone is here, we can get started with our fundraising meeting.” Minnie passed the agenda and minutes from the last meeting around.

  “Seriously?” Dinah took her packet and shook the papers at Minnie. “You bought the Bower because it was his house.”

  “Not really. It had been converted to a bed and breakfast long ago. I always wanted to run one.” Minnie picked up her pen. Maybe she could divert them with the library business. “Now, the first item is the book sale. We only made fifty-two dollars. Nowhere near enough to buy the new security system.”

  Dinah kept up the attack. “You sleep in his childhood home every night.”

  “You slept in his bedroom until the renovations on your living quarters were finished,” Edith added.

  “It was the most convenient. It was more secluded. I could use the back stairs without disturbing my guests.” She rattled off her excuses, knowing they sounded hollow. She needed to deflect Dinah’s insinuations. They were reminding her of things she wanted to keep hidden.

  “The new cameras, security tags, and monitoring gates are going to cost more than fifty-thousand dollars. We really have to step up our game.” Minnie made eye contact with Betty and Yvonne. If she could pull them into the conversation, maybe she could divert her friends’ line of questioning.

  “You never dated anyone after you returned from the Peace Corps.” Edith charged at her from another angle.

  The two women swiveled toward Edith. One’s jaw dropped open. So much for being allies. “I’m sure I dated someone,” she hedged. She wasn’t going to get out of this until their curiosity was quenched. Better to get it over with before Gordon came strolling through the parlor. She racked her brain for an example, but came up with five decades of nothing. “Doesn’t prove anything.”

  “N
ow that he’s back, what are you going to do?” asked Dinah. She wiggled her eyebrows. “I’ve heard he kept his looks.” She glanced from Edith to Minnie for confirmation.

  Minnie’s, “He could look worse,” was drowned out by Edith’s, “Better than he ever did.”

  Dinah screwed up her mouth. “I’ll have to see for myself. He’s around here, isn’t he?” She craned her neck to look down the hallway and into the dining room.

  If Minnie had lived a good life, Gordon would stay hidden in her apartment until this meeting was over.

  The doorbell rang. Minnie stood to answer it. “I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to run the Lilac Bower, and he can stay as long as he’s a paying customer. And I’ll ignore him as I have been.” She walked to the door and opened it. Obviously, she was bent straight for Hades. Gordon stood on her welcome mat.

  “Sorry to disturb your meeting, but I forgot my key.” He held a bag of plastic pieces that clunked as he shook it. “Picked up some things from the hardware store, so we can get the pipe repaired. Mark said you’d be without a shower until we repaired it.”

  The ‘we’ in his statement gave her a tiny thrill. She kind of liked having Gordon on her team. She had to remember he was a base hit, not a home run. But her knees went weak as he winked at her. The inferno snapped at her cheeks. She knew four sets of eyes skewered her back or peered over her shoulders.

  Gordon waved to the assemblage. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  Minnie quickly introduced the ladies as the Friends of the Library fundraising committee and willed Gordon to get on with his business and let her return to hers.

  A round of “nice-to-meet-you’s” and such arose from the group. Gordon nodded at each and gave a polite response. “What is your fundraising goal?” he asked, switching the bag of plumbing parts from hand to hand.