Hello, It's Me

by Wendy Markham

  Timing, after all, is everything.

  All right.

  So he won’t go chasing out to Long Island tomorrow even though it’s a holiday. He won’t go this weekend, or this month, or next.

  Nothing will have changed by then. He won’t be ready, and neither will she.

  Never mind that she claims she’ll never be ready, that her heart will always belong to her dead husband.

  Eventually, she’ll get past that.

  She has to.

  Doesn’t she?

  Stopping to wait for the light to change, Thom shakes his head, knowing that in life, as in business, some things are beyond his control.

  All he can do now is restrain his own impulses and stay away from Annie for as long as it takes to make his life everything he’s always wanted it to be.

  Only then can he entertain the notion of sharing the rest of it with Annie.

  Still waiting for the light, Thom closes his eyes briefly, wishing he could forget her somehow.

  Opening his eyes again, aware that he can’t forget her, he finds his gaze falling on a shop on the opposite corner.

  A florist shop.

  That’s odd. He’s walked this route between his office and his apartment hundreds of times, and he doesn’t remember seeing it before.

  Then again, this is Manhattan. Businesses come and go on a daily basis. And it isn’t as though he pays much attention to florists.

  Plus, the streets are relatively deserted on this night before Independence Day. Everyone who’s leaving town has left, those who are still here aren’t lingering in the midtown office canyons. Without the usual hustle and bustle on the streets to provide distraction, the florist shop is like a neon beacon.

  The light changes.

  Thom’s feet seem to carry him across the street and into the shop without his permission.

  A bell tinkles on the door as it closes behind him. The man behind the counter looks up.

  “Can I help you?” he asks.

  He looks familiar.

  Why?

  You’ve probably seen him around the neighborhood, Thom tells himself. He’s familiar the same way the coffee cart guy and the bank teller and the UPS man are familiar.

  He notices that the air is filled with a hauntingly familiar scent.

  “I need to send a bouquet of flowers,” he says, then pauses, waylaid by the intense floral fragrance and the memories it conjures: lying in dew-kissed grass with Annie cradled in his arms.

  “What kind of flowers?”

  “Honeysuckle,” Thom says decisively. That, after all, is what he smells.

  “No problem. Is tomorrow okay for delivery?”

  “Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Where’s it going?”

  Taken aback at the accommodating response, Thom recites Annie’s name and address, pausing when he gets to the zip code.

  He frowns when he realizes he doesn’t know it . . .

  Frowns harder when he realizes that the man behind the counter is still writing . . . and has written a five digit zip code after “Montauk, New York.”

  “I used to live out there,” he says by way of explanation, after glancing up to see Thom’s incredulous expression. “What do you want to say on the card?”

  The card.

  Thom hadn’t thought of that.

  What does he want to say?

  Never mind what he wants to say.

  What does he have to say?

  For his own good, and Annie’s?

  “Are the flowers for a special occasion?” the man behind the counter asks.

  “A special occasion?” he echoes dumbly.

  “Birthday, anniversary . . . ?”

  “Oh. No.”

  “Just a blank card, then?”

  “Just a blank card.”

  He watches the florist reach for a card from the spinner rack, absently noting the scar on his hand as he slides it and a pen across the counter toward Thom.

  “Sorry I pushed so hard. If space is what you need, you’ve got it. I’m here if you ever need me. Sincerely, Thom Brannock.”

  That’s it.

  Still standing on the front porch, where she discovered the green tissue-wrapped bouquet just now after a day at the beach with the children, Annie flips the florist’s simple card over.

  She half expects to find a postscript on the other side, but there’s nothing more.

  Well, of course there isn’t. What more is there to say?

  He’s done what she asked him to do.

  He’s given her what she needs.

  Space.

  Tears stinging her eyes, Annie buries her nose in fragrant honeysuckle blossoms and tells herself that it’s for the best.

  Part Three

  August

  Chapter 17

  I got through to Andre again last night,” Annie tells Dr. Leaver promptly, settling into her usual chair opposite his, depositing her handbag on the floor beside her sandaled feet.

  “Over the telephone?”

  She nods. “There was a thunderstorm out east, and I decided to try to call him again.”

  She watches the doctor’s face for a reaction, wondering if he considers this a setback.

  She’s been coming here weekly for over a month now, all through July, and just last session she told him that she really feels as though she’s beginning to heal.

  “Enough to stop wearing your wedding band?” he had asked her then, a suggestion that made her recoil.

  Now, he nods and rubs his chin thoughtfully. “What did Andre say when you spoke to him?”

  “He said . . .” She trails off, frowning, watching him. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Believe you?”

  “You don’t think I really made contact with Andre.”

  “What do you believe, Annie?”

  She lifts her chin and looks him in the eye. “I believe I made contact with Andre.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “There was a lot of static again. I could only pick out a handful of words.”

  “What were they?”

  “My name. ‘Love,’ ‘copper,’ and ‘sorry.’ And ‘know.’ Or ‘no.’”

  “And how do you feel about the call?”

  “Frustrated. Sad. Angry.” She hesitates.

  “Clearly, he’s trying to convey some kind of message.”

  “Yes, and I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “What do you think it could possibly be?”

  “I have no idea. And it’s really bothering me. I feel like everything is so . . . unresolved.”

  “That’s understandable, Annie. When a young person passes on as suddenly as your husband did, the grieving are often left with a feeling of unfinished business.”

  Unfinished business.

  Kind of like her relationship with Thom Brannock.

  It’s a case that was officially closed when he sent her the flowers last month, but she can’t help feeling as though . . .

  As though there should have been something more.

  A clean break, however, is for the best.

  Even if Milo and Trixie still ask about him from time to time.

  All right, just about every day.

  Which reminds her . . .

  “I wanted to talk about the kids,” she tells Dr. Leaver. “I’m worried about them.”

  He nods. “Is Milo still attempting to fly to heaven to see his father?”

  “No, it isn’t that. It’s more that he, um, hasn’t been flying to heaven at all this week. It’s kind of like he . . . gave up. Or maybe he’s forgetting all about Andre.”

  “Children are remarkably resilient, Annie. Milo is healing.”

  “But what if he’s forgotten?”

  “He hasn’t forgotten. He’s learning to move on. Does he talk about his father?”

  “Sometimes.”

  But not every day.


  “Have you told him about the phone calls?”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it would scare him, don’t you think?”

  “Not necessarily. Not only are children resilient, Annie, but they’re open to things adults might not see . . . or might not be willing to see. Bereaved children frequently speak of contact with lost loved ones. It wouldn’t be unusual for your son to experience that.”

  Annie is silent, contemplating that.

  “Has Milo ever mentioned having any kind of communication with his father?”

  “No.”

  “What does he say when he talks about your husband these days?”

  “He talks about things they used to do, places Andre took him . . . the same kind of things he always said.” She smiles. “Oh, and he’s mentioned a few times that my husband would be proud of the way my business is picking up.”

  “That’s good news.”

  Annie nods. “I’ve got cookie orders coming out of my ears lately, and my seashell sculptures are selling like crazy all of a sudden. In fact, if this keeps up, I think the catering job I have next weekend might be the last one I’ll have to take for a while.”

  “That’s wonderful, Annie.”

  She tells him how it all started: how, according to Devonne Cambridge, a woman with an Irish accent and a large expense account came in around the Fourth of July weekend, bought every one of Annie’s shell sculptures on display at the Harborside Emporium, and asked for two dozen more as corporate gifts.

  Ever since, Annie has been scrambling to keep up with business.

  “It’s good for me to be busy, don’t you think?” she asks Dr. Leaver.

  “Do you think it is?” he volleys back.

  “Yes,” she says firmly.

  Being busy means there’s less time to think. About Andre. About Thom.

  All too soon, the session has drawn to a close, and Annie finds herself back out on the street. Erika is away on vacation this week, so Annie left the children on Long Island with Merlin and Jonathan.

  Walking toward Penn Station, she goes back over all the things she discussed with Dr. Leaver.

  Maybe she should have brought up Thom.

  But why?

  She hasn’t spoken of him in the past few weeks. Why should she? He’s out of her life now. And anyway, she’s seeing Dr. Leaver to help her get over Andre, not Thom.

  Her thoughts drift again to the most recent phone call to her late husband, and subsequently, to the doctor’s questions about Milo.

  No, Milo has never mentioned communicating with his dead father . . .

  But Trixie has, Annie recalls suddenly, nearly stopping dead on the bustling city sidewalk.

  That night back in June, when she dreamed that Andre was in her room, sitting on her bed and talking to her . . .

  I should have told Dr. Leaver about that, Annie realizes, hesitating on the corner opposite his office building.

  Maybe she should go back up and tell him.

  Just to see what he thinks.

  No. Don’t do it, Annie.

  After all, it was just a dream. And Dr. Leaver would be sure to ask whether Andre conveyed a specific message to Trixie. The parapsychologist is very big on searching for messages.

  There is no way Annie can possibly share Trixie’s account of the conversation. No, not considering what Trixie said that night about her father.

  He said I was going to have a new daddy and it was Thom.

  Dr. Leaver would surely chalk that up as a figment of Daddy-deprived daughter’s vivid imagination, especially knowing what he does about Trixie’s history of night terrors.

  Or, embarrassingly, Dr. Leaver might suspect wishful thinking on the part of a lonely, lovelorn widow.

  Yes, Trixie’s dream is too trivial to mention to Dr. Leaver.

  Maybe if there were some other message, or if it had happened again . . .

  But there wasn’t, it hasn’t, and it isn’t likely to now that Trixie is sleeping through the nights undisturbed.

  Yes, Trixie’s night terrors seem to have subsided these past few weeks.

  She, like her brother, is gradually healing.

  Everybody is healing, Annie thinks sadly, heading on toward the train station, doing her best not to scan the crowded sidewalk for Thom’s face.

  Everybody but me.

  Thom’s polished dress shoes make a hollow sound on the scarred hardwood floor as he crosses the empty living room to inspect the ornate marble mantelpiece.

  “That was brought over from Europe around the turn of the century,” Daisy Kellerman, the real estate agent, informs him after referring to the sheaf of notes in her hand.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Yes. The last century,” she amends, as he runs his fingers over the cool marble. “It’s over a hundred years old.”

  Thom nods. “Yeah, I figured.” Clearly, little was added to this Village brownstone at the turn of this past century. Located on an uncommonly—for Manhattan—leafy and quiet street, the place is in a state of disrepair.

  According to Daisy, a wealthy young couple bought it a decade ago from the estate of its longtime owner, intending to do massive renovations. But before the house could be put back together, their marriage fell apart. The brownstone lay in vacant shambles throughout the messy divorce, part of a complicated property dispute.

  One might expect the place to be filled with bad vibes as a result, but, walking from room to room on the first floor and then the second and third floors, Thom is pleasantly surprised that there’s no such pall. Maybe that’s because the hapless couple never actually moved in. The home’s last actual resident was a reportedly sweet elderly widow who was born within these walls, raised a family here, and died here, well into her nineties.

  “Well, Mr. Brannock? What do you think?” Daisy asks anxiously, hovering at Thom’s elbow as he turns to look out the floor-to-ceiling window facing the back of the house. Two stories below lies an overgrown patch of courtyard, also rare in Manhattan. It’s actually large enough for a sandbox, swing set . . . and flowering shrubs.

  “I think,” he says with a slow grin, “that this place has character,” he says with a grin.

  “Annie? I thought you were finished with waitressing! What are you doing here?” asks Carlos, one of Merlin’s regular helpers, whom Annie has gotten to know quite well this summer.

  “This is my last event,” Annie says, lifting a heavy tray onto her shoulder. It’s loaded with small glass dishes that each contain a single scoop of blueberry sorbet, and she’s praying it won’t melt between the kitchen and the hostess’s distant garden.

  “Lucky you.” Carlos begins unloading salad plates. “I’m stuck with this gig for the rest of the summer.”

  “If it weren’t for the cookies doing so well, I would be, too,” Annie tells him, balancing the tray as she heads for the propped-open French doors.

  Carlos nods enthusiastically. “Oh, I heard Merlin got another big batch of cookie orders. Congratulations! You must be thrilled they’ve taken off. Maybe you’ll be the next Mrs. Fields.”

  “I’ll just be happy to pay the rest of my overdue bills.” With a smile, Annie slips back out into the midday heat.

  As she precariously transports her loaded tray along a winding gravel path, aware of the trickle of sweat building along her forehead, she can’t help thinking an evening event would have been a more comfortable swan song. Hustling back and forth around a sprawling estate in the blazing August sun on the most humid day of the year is downright torturous.

  What’s worse, the guest list for this garden club luncheon consists primarily of elderly females. Call her prejudiced, but Annie’s had a hard time warming up to that particular female blue-blood generation. They were bred in an era of pronounced class distinction, and they don’t let the help forget it.

  At least their male counterparts are friendly. Granted, they’re sometimes too friendly, but at least they don’t treat Annie as
if she were invisible. Though many of the same people are present at most of these society events, few of the women bother to acknowledge ever having seen Annie before. Perhaps they haven’t, considering the way they seem to look right through her even when she takes their meal orders.

  With a pesky bumblebee buzzing dangerously close to her hand and the sweets-laden tray, Annie at last reaches the cluster of white-draped tables in the dappled shade at the rear of the garden. The club’s guest horticulturalist is monotonously expounding on some botanical wonder or other.

  Setting her tray on a conveniently placed stand, Annie waves the bee away and begins serving the sorbet to the women feigning rapt interest in the speaker.

  “Thanks, Annie,” whispers white-haired, rosy-cheeked Mrs. Yates, at whose anniversary party Annie was a waitress weeks ago. She is the rare exception, one of the few women in this crowd who bothered to ask—and remember—Annie’s name.

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Yates.”

  “It’s Louisa, Annie,” the woman admonishes in a hushed tone.

  Annie smiles and carefully sets a bowl of sorbet before the woman seated next to Mrs. Yates.

  “Thank you,” she says, looking up with a rather intense expression. “Annie, is it?”

  “Yes. You’re welcome,” Annie says politely.

  She can feel the woman’s disconcerting gaze on her as she makes her way around the table, handing out blueberry sorbet with her right hand and shooing away the persistent bee with her left.

  Nothing like going from one extreme to the other, she thinks, wondering if it’s her imagination or if the woman seems to be overly interested in her.

  The bee buzzes in again, drawn by the scent of sweet blueberries. Annie swats impatiently at it, inadvertently making contact.

  Ouch.

  It’s all she can do not to scream in pain. She can see the end of the stinger in her rapidly swelling forefinger, but is helpless to remove it. At least, not yet. There’s sorbet to be served.

  Wincing in pain, she waves her throbbing hand as surreptitiously as she can, not wanting to attract attention. Glancing up, she sees that the older blonde at Mrs. Yates’s table is still watching her, more shrewdly, if possible, than before.

  An hour later, the party is winding down and the stinger has been removed, thanks to the tube of toothpaste Carlos found in a bathroom cabinet. When Annie protested to his snooping, he shushed her and promised to put it right back after dabbing it on her wound.