by A. L. Jambor
Charlie rolled to the front door and out to the porch. He watched the seagulls hovering around the blackened wood. Those kids must have cooked something and the scent lingered, fooling the scavenger birds. If Charlie died on the porch, they would come to pick his bones, too. He winced as he pondered this, and thought of his father flicking cigarettes at them when he would join Charlie on the beach for a smoke.
"Dirty birds," Joe would say. "Watch this, Charlie."
Joe would aim his lit cigarette at a small bird and laugh when it jumped away.
"Stupid birds."
Charlie thought of Joe now. Charlie had used his father's wartime legacy as a stepping stone in his political career. Storming the beaches at Normandy was the only heroic thing Joe Jackson had ever done, and Charlie always talked about his father when he gave a speech at the Veteran's Day commemoration in the park.
Charlie sometimes had trouble remembering his father. Joe spent most of his time away from the lighthouse, and Charlie spent most of his resenting Joe's absence. He did recall how many times the old man got drunk and that Josh would bring him home from Morton's, something else Josh did that made him the better son.
Charlie looked at the sun, which was high over the ocean. His caregiver was late. She usually came when the sun was facing him, and now he was hungry. She hadn't left him anything for breakfast and had warned him not to try and cook something himself. He hated being old and feeling so helpless.
As he wondered where she might be, he felt tired and closed his eyes for just a second as the summer breeze ruffled the strands of hair on the top of his head.
*****
"Go and get your sisters. We have to leave now. Do you hear me, Charlie? We have to leave now!"
Joan Jackson. It had been her idea to leave in the middle of the night. She glared at Charlie.
"Did you hear me?"
Charlie went to get the girls ready. He shook Birdie and when she moved, the other girls stirred.
"What's going on?" Birdie asked.
"Nothing. We're just going home."
"But we are home."
Joan packed with a fury, throwing things in bags and boxes, and Charlie took them to the truck. He was numb and his movements robotic. Joan ordered Joe to help her pack, and then sent him to dismantle the beds and haul mattresses to the truck where they were placed on the truck bed so the children would have a soft place to sit during their journey.
Joe attached a canvas tarp over a metal frame he'd fashioned before they came to New Jersey from Wisconsin. It covered the truck bed and protected the kids from the weather. It didn't keep it warm, though, and even though it was May, it was still cold at night. Charlie remembered huddling under a blanket with his sisters as they drove away from the lighthouse.
His mother drove, and his father kept turning his head and looking behind him. Once, he caught Charlie's eye, and then quickly looked away.
As the truck rambled over the uneven highway, Charlie dozed off and his hand fell on his brother's hand. When he woke up, he snatched it away, but not before Birdie noticed.
"Why is Josh sleeping?" she asked.
"He's tired," Charlie said.
"But it's getting light. He should wake up now."
Charlie glared at her. "Stop talking to me!"
Myrna stared at Charlie, her big brown eyes boring a hole in his lethargy.
"Stop it!" he cried, and she turned her face toward Birdie and cried.
"Why is everyone so mad?" Birdie asked.
"Shut up," Charlie said.
Joe looked sick as they drove to Wisconsin. He'd begged Joan to stop so he could buy a bottle of whiskey, but she'd smacked him across the face and told him to shut up. When they arrived in Wisconsin, his grandmother came to the door of the farmhouse when she heard them drive up the driveway. She must have been in her sixties at the time, but she wasn't infirm at all. Joan ran to her, hugged her, held her, cried in her arms, and then they both looked at the truck.
His grandfather came from the barn and walked to the truck to greet Joe, and then he went to say hello to the kids. Charlie never forgot the expression on his grandpa's face, or the way Joe had taken Grandpa by the arm and led him away from the truck. Charlie watched them talk, and then his grandfather looked at him.
"I got a place out back," he heard his grandpa say to Joe.
I got a place out back. The words echoed in old Charlie's ears.
Charlie stood next to his grandmother on the porch.
"What you don't see, you won't remember," Grandma said as she turned him toward her. His grandmother's voice was strained, and she sounded scared. "I guess you'll have to stay here for a while until you find a place," she said to Joan, though she didn't sound like she wanted them to stay.
"Thanks, Ma. It would help. Joe has to find a job."
"But I still don't understand what happened."
"I'll tell you later. I can't talk about it right now."
*****
Old Charlie opened his eyes and Celia Morton was standing at the edge of his lawn.
"Get out of here!" he shouted.
Charlie closed his eyes, but he knew she was still there. He hated her. He blamed her for stirring up these unbearable memories, and now he couldn't stop them.
He went inside. Damn his caregiver; he'd make his own damn coffee.
He rolled into the kitchen and cursed the height of the counters. He'd never reach the coffee. The caregiver had put everything out of his reach because he had burned himself on the stove. She wasn't taking any chances on him doing it again. He looked in the fridge and took out a piece of cheese. Where was that damn woman, anyway? It was almost nine. He had to take his meds.
She'd set up his meds in one of those daily dose holders on the kitchen table so he could take them on his own if he had to, but he had to eat something first. He bit the cheese and then took a piece of bread from the wrapper on the counter. After he ate that, he took his meds.
He was worried she'd been in an accident so he went to the phone and called the agency.
"We called you, Mr. Jackson. Charlene is running late. Didn't you get our message?"
He hadn't heard the phone ring, and the light on the phone hadn't been blinking.
"No. I didn't get the message."
"Well, we did call; she should be there soon."
He hung up and bit his lower lip. Was there something wrong with his hearing aid? Why hadn't he heard the phone? He looked at the phone again and there was no blinking light. They must have gotten it wrong. They couldn't have called him. As he turned the wheelchair to go to the front door, he saw her standing in his foyer. The spectral form of Celia Morton stared at him from inside his home now, and she wore a sly little smile on her face that sent chills up his spine.
Mayor Charlie Jackson
Charlene found Charlie in his wheelchair when she arrived. He had parked it in the foyer and was asleep. He woke when she nudged him.
"You look pale," she said.
"Where have you been?"
"The traffic is terrible. I think everyone in the state of New Jersey is heading to the beach today."
The cat came by his chair and Charlie reached for it.
"You old devil, where have you been?"
He stroked Beelzebub's neck and the cat arched its back before it hissed and ran away.
"Go on. Run, but you can't hide."
Charlene checked on his meds to see that he had taken them, brewed him some coffee, and then checked his vitals. She made him a sandwich for later, and then did some light housekeeping.
Charlie felt sad as he rolled into his study. Usually he was busy this time of year. He was always the honored guest at the Fourth of July and Labor Day picnics in the park. He was the man who brought Cape Alden into the twentieth century, but young people didn't remember him or the good things he had done for the town. He was a relic of the past and just as soon forgotten.
Seeing Celia in his foyer had shaken him badly, but he didn't know how b
adly. While his caregiver had thought he was sleeping, the truth was he had been so frightened he had passed out. When she shook him to wake him, he came to, never knowing that the strain on his heart had knocked him out.
As Charlene ran a vacuum around the living room, Josh's face drifted in and out of Charlie's mind, along with the flashes of jealousy that always accompanied recollections of him. Josh got the best food, the best girls, and the best his mother had to offer. The other children got whatever was left over at the end of the day, and that was divided with his sisters.
Charlie felt his heart racing again and grabbed the bottle of nitroglycerin tablets from his pocket. He put them under his tongue and waited for his heart to slow down. As the medicine took effect, an image of his mother entered his mind.
Charlie had often heard of Joan's sacrifices -- how she had abandoned her own dreams for her husband and children. She had worked while his father was fighting the war in Europe and she wore her resentment like a cloak around her shoulders. She would barely look at Charlie as they sat around their grandmother's table, focusing instead on her youngest daughter.
Joan's daughters raised each other, and Grandma finished raising Charlie, but he never stopped dreaming he would one day take his brother's place in Joan's heart. He didn't stop hoping for it until the day the police came to the door and told them that Joan had been in an accident on her way home from work. It had snowed and they believed she had swerved to avoid an animal in the road. She would never come home again.
Even now as he remembered her, all he could see was his failure to make her happy.
No. He wouldn't think about that. He wouldn't think about things he couldn't change. Grandma had taught him that.
"Draw a line across your mind," Grandma said. "On one side write "before," and on the other side write "after."
She'd said it over and over, and she'd shown him how he could go on with his life. It's how Charlie had managed to move on, to grow up, and to become a political success.
"Well," Charlene said as she came up behind him. "I've left your lunch on the table and your dinner in the fridge. I would make you something hot if you'd let me stay longer."
"I don't need you longer."
"Okay. I guess you like sandwiches. I'll see you tomorrow."
After she left, Charlie rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen where he usually ate his lunch. This day, as he rolled up to the table, he heard Olivia's voice echo through his mind.
"Only poor people eat in the kitchen."
He remembered her face and the way she looked at him when she found him having his breakfast at the kitchen table the day they returned from their honeymoon. The look was a mixture of disgust and arrogance, and he felt like a cur caught licking a plate from his master's table.
In those early days, she delighted in reminding him that she knew she had married beneath her and had done it to please her father. Charlie was smitten with her, and since his only child was a daughter, Olivia's father thought he could groom Charlie as a successor. He insisted Olivia marry him. He also gave her an enormous sum of money, which allowed Olivia to overlook her husband's lack of pedigree.
She did, however, insist he learn the rules of etiquette, which in her circles meant that only the hired help ate in the kitchen. Charlie had been ignoring etiquette in favor of comfort for quite some time, but today Olivia's presence was strong, so he put the plate with his sandwich on his lap and took it into the dining room.
Olivia had died suddenly in the winter of 1998. She had suffered a stroke, and the ambulance was unable to reach her in time because their road hadn't been plowed. He held her hand and watched the light go out of her eyes. Despite everything, Charlie had truly loved her.
When she left, Charlie was alone. He had no desire to marry again. He didn't want another woman; he wanted her, so now, as he ate alone at that big table, he imagined her sitting at the other end.
"It's lonely, isn't it?"
He looked up and saw Celia Morton sitting in Olivia's chair.
"Why didn't you marry again, Charlie?"
"Go away."
"You are all alone in this big house."
She stared at him, and he reached for his nitro.
"Why are you here?"
"Because you have to tell the truth."
"What truth?"
Celia looked at him and smiled. "You're the only one left who knows I didn't do it."
He shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Celia was standing beside him.
"You have to tell them the truth."
"Go away," he said. "Just leave me alone."
"I can't leave you alone, Charlie. Time is running out. You have to tell them now!"
Beelzebub walked into the dining room and hissed.
"You see her, too, don't you, you old devil," Charlie mumbled.
The cat arched his back and ran up the stairs to the second floor, far away from the ghostly apparition that haunted his master.
Celia moved closer to Charlie. He felt a tug at his chest which soon turned into blinding pain. He reached for his nitro, but it fell out of his shaking hand and lay on the floor a few inches away. He looked at Celia as if she could fetch the bottle for him. She looked at it, and then at him.
"Damn you," she said as he pushed the button on the chain around his neck to summon help.
Mari
It was dark when Mari left the library. She called Phil, but he didn't answer. She was worried about him. He'd been acting weird, and she wanted to give him some space, but if she didn't hear from him by tomorrow, she'd go to the hardware store to see if he was all right.
She took her bike from the rack in front of the library and headed for home. She was halfway there when she felt the first raindrops, and the deluge that followed drenched her hair and clothes. The thunder came out of nowhere and made her shiver, but the lightning, which was what the weatherman would call "dangerous," scared the hell out of her, especially when a bolt hit the street a few yards in front of her.
She stopped her bike and wondered if she should run to one of the houses on the road. She wasn't far from her apartment, though, so she decided to take a chance and started pedaling. She was going as fast as she could when another bolt of lightning lit up the road. The rain pelted her face, making it hard to see, but she was sure she saw Charlie Jackson sitting in the middle of the road ahead of her. He was in his wheelchair. She moved to go around him, but all of a sudden he was in front of her, causing her to swerve. She righted herself and kept going, but he was in front of her again. This time, the wheels of the bike slipped on the wet road, and she fell on her side. Her heart was pounding, and she could see his face when the lightening lit up the sky.
"Leave us alone," he said, and then he was gone.
"Are you all right?"
Mari turned her head and saw a woman coming toward her with an umbrella.
"I'm fine," Mari said loudly.
"Is that you, Mari?"
It was Constance Penny.
"Yes."
Constance came to her side and helped Mari get up.
"What on Earth are you doing out here? Come, get inside."
Mari felt pain shoot from her hip to her ankle, but she was able to lift her bike and limp to Constance's door.
"You're soaked through," Constance said. Mari left the bike on the ground and followed Constance inside. "And you're hurt. I think I'd better drive you to the hospital."
"No, don't be silly, it's nothing. I was just startled by the lightning."
"That's how I saw you. I was looking outside. You shouldn't be out there on a bike, you know."
"Yes, Constance, I know. I was coming home from the library."
"Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"
Mari shook her head.
"Well, then come to the kitchen. I'll make you some tea."
Constance had just boiled some water so she poured them each a cup of chamomile tea.
"It helps me sleep,
" she said. "It also calms you down."
"I'm fine, Constance."
"You don't look fine."
Mari sighed. She sat back and tapped her fingers on the table. Constance brought the tea to the table and sat.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Mari asked.
"I don't believe in anything I can't touch with my hands."
"So, not religious then."
"No. I've always been a bit skeptical about religion."
"Well, I used to be like that, too."
"Used to be," Constance said.
Mari looked at Constance. "I see dead people, like that kid in the movie. I see them all over town."
"I know there have been sightings of Celia Morton."
"She visits me, too. That's the real reason I started researching Charlotte again." Mari paused. "Do you know if Charlie Jackson died?"
"Why? Did you see him?"
Constance sounded a little too excited.
"I saw him in the road just now. That's why I fell."
"Did he say anything?"
"He just told me to leave us alone."
Constance narrowed her eyes.
"He said us?"
"Yeah, us, not me, like more than one." Mari leaned forward. "Maybe he's been busting our asses because he's protecting someone." She bit her lower lip. "Someone who could still be hurt if the truth gets out."
"He had family, but they all moved back to Wisconsin."
"True, but he has kids," Mari said.
"Okay, so what is it he's trying to protect them from?"
Mari ran her finger over the rim of her mug. Charlie had been trying to keep her from investigating Charlotte's murder since she'd asked the town for permission to film there. Whoever it was he was trying to protect, they had to be pretty important to him.
"It had to be a family member."
"His kids or his sisters," Constance said.
Charlie and his family had taken off during the week before the sheriff found Charlotte's body. They had gone to Wisconsin without saying a word to anyone.
"Someone in that family did it," Mari said. "They killed Charlotte."
