1 The Ghost in the Basement

by SUE FINEMAN

  Hannah raked the leaves into two piles and stuffed them into plastic bags. She didn’t want to burn them and send smoke into the street. It could cause an accident. She carried the bags to the kitchen porch and heard the phone ringing. She opened the door and heard Pop call, “Hannah, telephone.”

  She grabbed the kitchen phone. Howard Bush said, “Hannah, I now have a value on all the stock. We need to discuss what you want to do.”

  “Do you have a total value?”

  “As of this morning, it’s precisely three hundred and ninety-six thousand, six hundred and forty-two dollars. That figure, of course, varies with market conditions. I’d like to see you in my office and go over your portfolio in detail, perhaps make some suggestions.”

  They set up a time for her to come in and she hung up. She wanted to yell and celebrate her good fortune, but if Trevor knew she had money, she’d never get rid of him. “Thank you, Charity,” she called into the room. “Thank you.” With the money, she had time to turn this house into the showplace it once was. And she would. She’d make Grandpa and Grandma proud.

  “Pop,” she called. “Where are you?”

  “Upstairs.”

  She took the steps two at a time, talking on her way up. “How much would it cost to build a garage?”

  He walked toward her grinning. “Good news?”

  “Very good news.”

  “How big do you want this garage? Two-car, three-car? Do you want room for a workshop or lawn storage, and do you want it off the side street or off the alley in back?”

  “Three-car,” said Trevor, “and off the alley, so it’s easier to pull out in traffic.”

  Hannah looked around to see Trevor standing at the bottom of the attic steps.

  “Why don’t we go outside and step it off?” he said. “We’ll have to wait to build it until spring, and by then I’ll have the plan worked out and—”

  She held up her hand. “Are you telling me you expect to be here next spring?”

  Somewhere in the house a woman laughed, and then a man laughed along with her. It was a hollow, muted sound unlike anything she’d ever heard before, yet it was clearly laughter. The spirits were getting more bold.

  Pop grinned. “Someone is enjoying themselves.”

  “It’s not funny,” Hannah yelled into the house, and the laughter stopped.

  “I won’t be in the way,” said Trevor. “Next summer, I’ll paint the outside of the house, and help you… ”

  Hannah walked away. The divorce was supposed to end it between them, yet here he was, living in her house and entertaining her ghosts. But he was earning his keep, something he’d never done before. He was a pleasant enough guy, and if he were anyone but her ex-husband, she wouldn’t mind having him here.

  Trevor was like chewing gum on the sidewalk, something you stepped in that never came off your shoe. With every step, it stuck and released with a slight pull, just enough to remind you it was still around. Trevor was still around, stuck to her shoe. Maybe he’d leave with Monique, but she doubted it. She wouldn’t take care of him. She wanted someone to take care of her, and Trevor couldn’t even take care of himself. Monique used Trevor to drive her across the country, and now she was done with him.

  Hannah went back outside to work in the yard. She pruned Grandma’s rose bushes and pulled the weeds from around them. It would soon be too cold to work outside, and this beautiful Indian summer day was too nice to waste.

  The porch swing should be taken down for the winter, so it didn’t bang into the house, and Monique had only managed to swipe at one window before she quit. The windows were so dirty you could barely see through them. Maybe she should hire someone to wash them outside. She’d already washed most of the windows on the inside. She could do the ones on the main floor outside, but she wasn’t too crazy about the idea of climbing on a tall ladder to wash the ones upstairs. Maybe she’d try some of that cleaner you used with a hose for now and wait until spring to call a professional to wash them.

  Since Trevor was hanging around, she’d have him finish the attic. Pop had sketched out a plan – two bedrooms and a bathroom on one side, and big storage rooms on the other side. The middle would be left open as a big family room of sorts, with a built-in cabinet for Pop’s television. Her first thought was that Billy could use it as a place to entertain his friends when he was a teenager, and then she remembered he wouldn’t be living here then.

  Donovan wouldn’t move out before the year was over, would he? If he did, she’d lose her home. Did he still expect her to move out? Maybe he expected them to stay in the house together. They’d grown so close in the past few weeks. He said he didn’t want another wife, and she didn’t especially want another husband when she couldn’t get rid of the first one, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have an affair. It would end by next October. He’d move out and find another woman, and she’d have the house to herself.

  Pop opened the front door and called out to her. “Hannah, do you want me to fix lunch today?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Twelve-thirty.”

  She wasn’t finished in the flower beds, but Pop was hungry. “I made a pot of chili yesterday. Is that okay?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Any kind of food sounded good to Pop. When had she started thinking of Donovan and Pop and Billy as her family? In the beginning, she resented her grandfather for pushing them off on her, especially when Donovan made it clear he didn’t expect her to stay. She’d been here six weeks, and instead of making plans to leave, she was planning what to do with the house next year. Why would she move away from her home?

  At some point, she wanted to remodel the kitchen, but new bathrooms had to come first, and then the attic. She’d spend the winter redoing the wallpaper and replacing the rest of the worn linens and curtains and drapes. The garage would go in next spring, and new carpet. She’d get the yard in shape, and if Trevor was still around, he could paint the outside.

  The kitchen was old and inconveniently designed, but functional. No matter how much she scrubbed the sink, it wouldn’t come clean. Grandma had scrubbed the finish off years ago. After everything else was done, she’d have the kitchen gutted and start over.

  She stood and brushed off her knees. Time to go feed the family.

  At least the ghosts didn’t have to be fed.

  <>

  At dinner, Pop mentioned borrowing the pickup to buy wood to fix the floor in the room Andrew had been killed in. Hannah asked, “How hard would it be to put a bathroom in that room?”

  “Not hard at all if we can string the plumbing on the wall by that staircase. You want a master bathroom off that big bedroom?”

  Donovan sipped his water and his eyes sparkled. “She doesn’t like sharing with a bunch of guys who leave the seat up.”

  Trevor excused himself and returned with the sketch of a plan for that room. There were twin vanities, one on either side of a window seat, a separate shower and tub, and a big walk-in closet, turning that big bedroom into a master suite. Off the hallway, he’d sketched a laundry, big linen closet, and another closet for storing off-season clothes. She liked the idea of having the laundry near the bedrooms instead of in the basement. They had a laundry shoot off the old bathroom for the dirty laundry, but the clean laundry had to be carried up two flights of stairs.

  Hannah, tongue-in-cheek, asked, “Have you gotten Andrew’s approval on this?”

  He pointed to initials written on the bottom right corner. “A J,” she read. “Are you telling me that this is Andrew’s initials?”

  Trevor beamed. “Yep. He likes my work.”

  “So do I,” said Donovan. “Too bad he didn’t sign his full name.” He called into the room, “Andrew, we need to know your last name, so we can bury your remains with your family.”

  Hannah didn’t expect a response, but something tapped on the wall outside. Donovan bolted out of his chair and out the kitchen door. Hannah was right behind him. The tapping came from
the front corner of the foundation.

  Donovan pushed the shrubs aside and knelt in the flower bed. He brushed his fingers over the engraved letters and numbers in the cornerstone and read them to Hannah. “ANDREW JEFFERSON 1918. Thanks, Andrew. This is a big help.”

  Donovan pushed himself to his feet muttering, “Now you’ve got me talking to them.”

  She laughed, and he grabbed her, swung her around, and kissed her. “His name was Andrew Jefferson, and it didn’t come in a vision. It’s solid proof, right here on the house.”

  She smiled up at him and he stood gazing into her eyes with a look of unguarded love. At that moment, she knew he loved her. There were times when he was distant and other times, like this, when he couldn’t hide his feelings. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. “Your nose is cold.”

  “So is yours.”

  They held hands and gazed at each other like love-struck teenagers, until Hannah shivered. They walked back into the warm, fragrant kitchen and finished their dinner.

  Donovan knew he had to get this investigation moving, so he could wrap things up here and get back to work. He couldn’t remember ever taking this much time off work.

  “I’ll talk with Perkins in the morning and have someone put a trace on the name.”

  Andrew Jefferson.

  <>

  Nearly two weeks had passed since Monique left, and her luggage still sat in the corner of the living room. Hannah cleaned around it. She spent at least an hour cleaning every day. There was so much dust in the house, as soon as she got one room cleaned, it was dusty again.

  By Thanksgiving week, she had the wallpaper in her room and Charity’s room steamed off, the flower beds around the house weeded and the bushes pruned, and new drapes hung in the living and dining rooms. The cleaners discovered the only thing holding the old velvet drapes together was the dust. No surprise there. Sometimes Hannah thought the dust was the glue that held the old house together.

  Wednesday morning, Hannah made pies for Thanksgiving dinner.

  That afternoon, she and Pop and Donovan picked Billy up from school and drove to the cemetery. There were no gravestones for Sonny and Virginia Taylor, but there was one on Charlie Taylor’s grave. Hannah stared at her father’s headstone and remembered the day Pop and his wife had come to the house to tell her and her grandparents that Charlie had been killed. It was gut-wrenching to watch her grandparents disintegrate right before her eyes. The grief at losing their only son was too much for them to bear.

  Hannah had a lot of trouble dealing with her father’s death. She was only twelve, old enough to understand the finality and young enough to wonder what would happen to her. The funeral was a huge affair that brought police officers from across the state. Her grandparents clung to each other, sobbing, overwhelmed by the enormity of their loss. If not for Donovan and his parents, she would have hidden under the bed.

  Two days after the funeral, Hannah flew back to Seattle, and the minute she stepped off the plane, Monique told her she was never going to River Valley again, as if that would take away the pain of her daddy’s death. For Monique, the subject was closed, and Hannah had no one to talk to about her grief. Monique acted as though Dad had never existed, and Hannah couldn’t stop crying.

  Monique had never taken Hannah to church or Sunday school, but Hannah had gone every Sunday when she lived in River Valley, and she knew her father and grandparents believed in a hereafter, a place where there was no pain or suffering, a place of everlasting love and peace.

  Pop pointed. “Virginia was buried beside Charlie, and Sonny is the next one down.”

  Sod had been fitted on top of the raw graves, but the seams were still visible. “I want to buy them headstones like my father’s.”

  Pop put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze. “I thought you would. I have the information at home. Sonny said to leave it up to you.”

  Hannah knelt in front of her father’s grave, pulled stray grass from around the headstone, and put one of the bouquets of flowers she’d brought on top. She silently told her dad she’d tried to be the kind of daughter he’d be proud of and apologized for not being there for Grandpa and Grandma when they needed her. She’d been a fool to believe anything Monique told her, especially when it came to the Taylor family.

  As she put the flowers on Grandma’s grave, tears welled up in her eyes. Grandma had been more of a mother to her than Monique ever had. She taught her to cook and sew, and encouraged Hannah to get a good education. Grandma made Hannah feel like the luckiest little girl to live with them for a few weeks every year. Her self-esteem soared when she was with her daddy and grandparents, and then she went back to Monique and it all drained away.

  By the time Hannah reached Grandpa’s grave, tears flowed down her cheeks. Grandpa’s silly jokes always made her laugh. He was a happy guy who made everyone around him smile. These three people were generous and giving and loving, and seeing them all here together left an emptiness in her soul.

  Unashamed of her tears, Hannah let herself grieve for her family and for herself. The only family she had left was Monique, the mother who’d cut her off from the only people who’d ever truly loved her.

  She wiped her face and eyes and stood. Pop had wandered off and she was alone with her memories and the hurts of the past. Losing her daddy had shaped the rest of her childhood. The happiness of her summers and Christmas holidays ended abruptly. After a few phone calls, she wasn’t even allowed to speak with her grandparents, and then Monique told her they were dead.

  Monique had ruined her childhood, but she wouldn’t ruin the rest of Hannah’s life. When her mother returned to the house, she’d be thrown out. Monique didn’t belong in Sonny and Virginia Taylor’s home. In Hannah’s home.

  Donovan stood with Pop and Billy at a grave with a small, simple stone. Billy put the flowers he’d chosen on his grandmother’s grave, and Pop blew her a kiss. Donovan still missed his mother. They all did, especially Pop.

  Billy glanced around. “Where’s my mom buried?”

  Donovan hadn’t been to Maggie’s grave since the funeral, so he wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. He and Billy walked over together. The headstone was pink marble, with angels carved around the name. Billy stared, and Donovan realized how it must look to him.

  Margaret Eleanor Goodman

  Maggie

  Beloved Daughter

  Maggie was also a wife and mother, but Eleanor made sure that wasn’t mentioned. The only thing of importance to Eleanor was that Maggie was her daughter.

  Billy threw his flowers at the headstone and ran away, and Donovan knew he had some serious damage control to do.

  Hannah opened her arms and Billy ran into them.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Pop.

  Donovan walked up. “Maggie’s headstone doesn’t have Kane on it, and it says beloved daughter.” It was a slap in the face of a sensitive kid.

  “Billy, it wasn’t your mother’s doing,” said Hannah. “Someone made a mistake when they ordered the stone.”

  Billy kept his face turned away, but Donovan knew he was crying. His tears were always just under the surface when Maggie’s name came up. She’d rejected Billy to spite Donovan, and in doing so, sliced this boy’s heart into little pieces.

  Donovan shared a long look with Hannah. “The headstone is another dig at me. Eleanor blamed me for not making Maggie happy.”

  “Oh, please. People are responsible for their own happiness. You can’t make someone happy if they’re determined to be unhappy.”

  Did Maggie enjoy being unhappy? At times it seemed that way. Blaming him for things seemed to give her a sense of self-importance, and Eleanor encouraged it. Maggie had never experienced a sense of accomplishment for a job well done. She’d never had a job, didn’t care about the house, and didn’t like being a wife and mother. The only thing she did well was shop.

  Maggie had always bought whatever she wanted without a thought for the cost. Sixt
y-dollar bras she wore once or twice, two-hundred dollar dresses she wore once, if at all, too many shoes to count, and things she bought only because she thought they were pretty. Things she never used or wore. When she died, there were still price tags on many of her clothes. Since he didn’t have receipts, he didn’t know where they came from or when she bought them. He ended up selling or giving away things he was still paying for.

  He kept a few of Maggie’s things for Billy, but Donovan didn’t want any reminders of his failed marriage. One of these days, he’d have to go through the box of pictures and find some for Billy, but he hated to do that. His son didn’t need any reminders of his mother. All he remembered of Maggie was the pain of her rejection.

  There were some good times, but there were so few of them. She had never wanted Billy. How could anyone not love Billy? He was a perfect baby who didn’t cry much, a child who soaked up love and attention and gave it back tenfold, but Maggie was too selfish to love anyone but herself.

  He looked at Hannah, who was still hugging his son, and what he felt for her was nothing like he’d felt for Maggie, even in the beginning. Maggie was beautiful, a living doll who made him proud to be in her company. But the beauty wore thin when he realized that was all she cared about. Looking beautiful cost a lot of money and took all her time and attention.

  Hannah didn’t spend tons of money on herself, and she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. She treated Pop like her own father, gave unconditional love to his son, and gave a man down on his luck a place to live and productive work to do, so he could feel good about himself. Aside from mooching off Hannah, Trevor treated her with respect, which she deserved. Hannah was pretty, but most of her beauty radiated from within. It was the lasting kind that came from caring about others, the kind of beauty missing in Maggie.

  He owed Sonny a debt of gratitude. The old man knew what he was doing when he asked them to live together. If he and his family hadn’t moved into the house with Hannah, Billy wouldn’t have a warm, nurturing woman to mother him, Pop wouldn’t eat decent meals, and Donovan wouldn’t be falling in love.