“The oldest ones are probably valuable now.” Sarah had seen pictures of her mother as a child, some with skinned knees and jeans and some wearing adult dresses and jewelry. Cute kid.
“Of course they are. We can get them out and display them with the milk glass vases I saved from childhood.”
When Eloise picked up Sarah’s drink can and took a sip Sarah saw her mother raise an eyebrow.
“Ma, do you believe in ghosts?”
Eloise put the can back.
“Unless you’re doing magic tricks I just might.”
“Mama, meet Mattie and Eloise, my imaginary friends, my teen hallucinations, and my ghost friends.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mattie and Eloise.” She glanced around acted as she always had when Sarah had played make-believe. “I’d shake hands but I can’t see your hands.”
“Are you gonna sneak out and call Daddy and the men with the straight jackets?”
“Why should I? I saw the can move. Describe your friends, since I can’t see ‘em.”
“Mattie looks like a Civil War young woman and Eloise looks like the pictures of Grandma Overby or Joan Crawford in the World War II movies.”
“You mean there’s a resemblance to the snapshots?”
“No, ma’am, the clothes and hairdo are similar.”
“Oh, that helps me some.”
“Eloise and I wanted to help you and your mama dig in Sarita’s trunk.” Mattie nodded toward the ancient trunk. “Eloise wanted to help you explore, but we couldn’t open it.”
“Let’s get to it.” Sarah knelt and raised the lid.
“Sarah?” Her mother was dear. “Were you speaking to me?”
“The girls want to help us go through the trunk.
“Okay, what if I hang those lovely old dresses in the chifforobe, so you can get to the stuff beneath without injuring the delicate, old fabrics? Wouldn’t that help?”
“Were these Sarita’s?” Eloise asked.
Sarah answered. “Some were.” She touched the lavender dress her mother held. “I remember that one. I wore it after I returned from the war,” Sarah turned at the collective gasps from her mother and both ghosts. “with white slippers and long white gloves,” her voice trailed off. “Sarita removed the ruffles and wore it several times.”
Mattie’s voice was barely above a whisper. “We added the purple bows to make it different for a reception at the governors mansion.”
She hadn’t remembered that when William had held the dresses. But that seemed a lifetime ago. She couldn’t believe her mom took everything so calmly.
When the dresses hung neatly Sarah reached for the family Bible. “Why was this put away? Someone should have kept it for future generations.”
Mattie wiped a tear from her cheek. “Walter put it in here after cousin Sarita passed. There were no children to inherit it. Losing her broke his heart. He read it so often and studied the notations she made so often they were beginning to blur. One night he had so much to drink he almost buried it, so we put it away where he wouldn’t see it. His brother’s family has the same information in their Bible, too.”
Sarah unwrapped a length of yellowed paper. Tears clogged her throat as she exposed a tiny, muslin, baby gown with a matching cap. The white had barely yellowed. She touched a spot on the front. She’d pricked her finger while she sewed it and the blood hadn’t come out completely. She smiled as she ran her finger over the stitches. She’d never been good at womanly things, but every stitch had been made with love.
Mattie knelt beside Sarah. “You were so proud when you finished this for the first baby. No mother could have worked so hard to make it perfect.”
Sarah couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. She cried for Sarita and all she had lost. Her mama held her, patting her back and smoothing her hair from her face as pent up grief flooded her heart and her soul. Poor babies. They would have been so cherished by Sarita and Walter.
When Sarah finally cried herself out her mom handed her a wad of paper towels, then waited patiently for her to stop hiccupping to speak.
“Sarah, has this kind of thing happened often?”
“Not before we opened the trunk.” Sarah blew her nose. “It began with the journals and this necklace.” She touched the beads but moved her fingers away. She needed to talk. Hell, the memories were coming from everywhere now. “Mom, am I crazy?”
“Of course not.” Her mother’s answer was quick and sure. “Baby I’ve never had experiences like you’re having. We all see, and hear, and feel things we can’t explain. You were always open to new things. Children believe in magic, but I think you believed more than most. You daddy and I called you our miracle and maybe you’re even more special than we realized.”
Sarah watched Eloise pace in front of the window. When she stopped, Mattie hugged her. “I thought we were just here to look after Sarah like you looked after me. Could there be more?”
“We are definitely tied to our Sarah. I can not imagine what more there is for us to do but we must help her go through the trunk. There may be something in it she needs.”
“Is she really your cousin Sarita?”
Mattie looked at Sarah who moved from the comfort of her mother’s arms. She stood and walked to the ghosts. “How could we doubt it?”
She hugged them, feeling a strange warmth from the specters. She glanced down at her mother, who sat watching. Her voice was wistful. “I do wish I could see and hear both sides of your conversations.”
“Eloise asked Mattie if I could really be Mattie’s cousin Sarita. What else could all this mean?” She returned to the trunk. “If this is too confusing, Mama, I’ll understand if you want to go back downstairs while I do this.”
“I’ll stay. You might need me.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Sarah hugged her, then gave her a loud, messy smooch on her cheek. “I love you.”
She unearthed three of her, no, Sarita’s favorite books. How they had survived read after read she couldn’t imagine. She knew one held a pressed red rose and a sprig of violets. One held clover sprigs and a Camellia she had worn in her hair to a party. Her mother placed them on the nearby bookcase.
Sarita had saved notes and letters from Walter. She’d turned the pages of some letters upside down and written new letters between the lines for some people. But she hadn’t been able to share Walter’s letters or let them go. Unwrapping another stack of paper, she discovered her husband had saved her letters to him. He had never shown them to her. She sniffed both stacks, imagining they held the faintest scent of their owners. They joined the books on the shelves. She wasn’t ready to read their letters to each other, but she would be.
Untying a large, oilskin wallet she found bills of sale for land sold. Walter had drawn maps of their properties as well as sketches of buildings he had designed.
She recognized three, small, oval portraits, wedding portraits of Sarita, William, and of them together. Had they really been so young and innocent? What had happened to the larger wall portraits?
The sepia photographs had faded in spite of the paper wrapping. There were few of the precious images to be had.
Her heart lodged in her throat. William had hired a photographer to capture a last image of her before burial. Seeing the person she once was sent chills up her spine. Had she really been that person?”
“He cried over that one for years,” Mattie said.
“Why would anyone want to keep a photo of me looking so bad? There were much better images of me.”
“We all thought you were beautiful ‘til the last. You were only thirty four, still a young woman.”
Sarah’s mother took the portrait. “I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. My grandparents had some of these of their grandparents and relatives. Sarita looks a lot like you, baby.”
That shock had been mild compared to the next death portrait. The portrait of a man not much older than William lay in repose. The image blurred as tears filled her eyes. How strange
to look at the man she had loved. The man who had cared for her and made love to her looked so still. She could still see the robust man she had loved. Had he felt that heartbreaking sense of loss each time he looked at her picture? The pain nearly split her in half.
“Mama, I can’t,” Sarah gasped. “It hurts so much.”
“Time to go downstairs. I’ll come back up here in a while and put these things in a drawer and close the trunk.”
Her mother and her ghosts helped Sarah up and led her away from the pain. A person could handle just so much. She could come back up here later.
##
Sarah lay in her bed, drifting in and out of sleep. The afternoon had helped relax her. Drawn curtains and shades blocked most of the afternoon sun. Her ceiling fan rotated in slow circles stirring the air and making her drowsy. Her mother the writer seemed to absorb any shock thrown her way.
##
William tried to keep his mind on driving. Only the moon illuminated his way down narrow mountain roads for twenty miles before he reached a two-lane state highway. His visit had brought too few answers to his many questions. He hadn’t expected Dr. McAfee to accept his story about the journals and his and Sarah’s memories so easily. He hadn’t expected to flip out while Doc watched either. Doc never ceased to amaze with his ability to accept anything.
Despite the summer heat William enjoyed the air rushing into the window of his Mustang. He tried to call Sarah but his mobile phone was out of range.
Dr. Mac had always had a way of making unbelievable things seem so believable. His hypnotic voice had kept students in thrall for years. His retirement had come as a surprise to everyone but he still worked the lecture circuit and wrote for journals. His mind was still sharp for a seventy-year old.
“Son,” he had said earlier that day. “the human mind has so any facets we can never fathom its limits. Who can say what can and cannot be true? We cannot prove that we have never lived before or that each man or woman has only one life. Now, what’s really troubling you? You may skip the hypotheticals this time.”
After that William had explained about the journals and his and Sarah’s memories.
He and the old professor had both been shaken after the battlefield episode. The scientist in him wanted to record everything. William just wanted to sleep for a week, after he and Sarah had a long talk. But first he’d answered as many questions as he could for his mentor.
“What does Sarah have to say about your shared memories of a past life?”
“I haven’t told her about my, uh-strange Walter memories about stuff.” He blushed. “I’d already told her she couldn’t be reliving memories of another woman.”
“So you’re telling me you let Sarah expose her fears, but you didn't expose your own. Is that about it?
“Well, I needed to understand more before I –“
“But Sarah trusted you. She didn’t have to analyze everything before sharing with you.”
“She believed.” He rubbed his day-old beard. “I didn’t.”
“And now?”
“I don’t understand, but I have to believe. How else can we explain what happened in your study and for the past week?” Their theories hadn’t made William feel better.
That had been three hours ago. Now as he raced down I-85 toward Sarah, he didn‘t know if he could wait ‘til morning to see her. His cell phone chirped. He rolled his window up to cut down the wind noise, then answered.
“Hey, there.” His voice felt scratchy, probably from the night air.
“Hey, yourself. Where are you?”
“Just north of Atlanta. We ran late talking. I think Doc misses long academic discussions.”
“I can’t wait to see you. I missed you,” Her soft voice sent shivers over him. “and there’s more to tell you.”
“It’s already late, Princess. See you first thing in the morning, okay?”
“Can’t hear you, you’re breaking up.”
“What did you say?”
He lost her. He hated when the reception messed up. He’d be home in a couple of hours. Dr. Mac had been right. He had to come clean with Sarah. He had avoided sharing his vulnerable feelings about things he didn’t understand for long enough.
As a psychologist he was supposed to understand matters of the mind. He laughed out loud. Right! Nothing he had read in his textbooks had prepared him to deal with this thing happening to him and to Sarah.
At midnight William pulled into his driveway. The lights were out in Sarah’s house as he’d expected. His mind had been busy all the way home. By the time he dragged himself out of his car he was on auto-pilot.
Bed. A soft, cool pillow. Rest.
The street light illuminated his way up the sidewalk, but faded behind the tall shrubbery. Trudging up the steps, he breathed deeply of the summer night air. Honeysuckle, late gardenias, Sarah’s shampoo. He stilled on the top step and sniffed again. Sarah’s shampoo? His porch-swing creaked.
“Hi, lover.” Her voice was as sultry as the air.
“Hi, yourself.” He sauntered to the swing. “Wasn’t my porch light on?”
“Uh-huh, I unscrewed it.”
“Why? I can’t see.” The moon had deserted him to hide behind clouds. He could hear her breathing. Even staring in the dark corner he could barely make out her image.
“Let me be your eyes,” she ordered, her voice sultry.
“You shouldn’t be here alone.” His voice sounded strange.
“I’m not alone, now.”
The swing’s movement put her sitting between his legs, her face against his middle. She parted the front of his shirt, popping the buttons open. Her hair was soft against his palms, her breath hot against his belly. His arousal had begun the second he recognized her scent. It had grown with her touch and nearly exploded when her teeth grazed his stomach and her hands slid down the front of his jeans.
“Sarah, this isn’t the place.”
“I’m getting there.”
He reached down from her hair to her bare shoulders.
“Oh, God, what are you wearing, Princess?”
“Nuthin’,” she said.
His heart stopped.
“Much.” she laughed.
When he finally found fabric it was so soft and thin he resented the moon that had deserted him when he needed the light to see what this daft woman wore on his porch. It felt like the sheerest curtain over hot damp skin.
She unsnapped his jeans.
“Sarah,” He hated to interrupt. “we need to go inside.”
Her hand on his zipper stole his breath. “Come inside.”
She stood. “I think that’s my line.” Her arms wound around his neck. Her legs clasped his waist. He took a step toward his front door and he tripped, landing both of them on the floor.
“Falling for me, are you?” She laughed and straddled him where they had fallen.
His ass ached. “Yeah, you caught me with my pants loose.” The line was so familiar, like he’d said it before. Sarah’s laugh seemed far away. Had he hit his head?
William squinted up at Sarah.
Her hair hung like a fiery curtain around them. The moon had come out of hiding, painting his Sarita in a golden glow. Walter laughed at the slight weight of his wife. He had tried to stay away from her, to protect her from another pregnancy. She just would not permit that. He allowed her to raise his hands above his head, sliding her breasts up his torso.
She had followed him out to the gazebo and slipped out of her dress and shift. For the first time since her mother’s death her smile did not seem to hide her hurt. He’d give her the loving they both needed but he’d stop short of his own release.
Gripping her hands, he slid their arms together over his head, grasping her wrists in one hand. His free hand roamed from her neck to her breasts, down her stomach and around her back.
##
“William.”
William? He heard a petulant voice. Not Sarita’s. The vision of the gazebo faded.
He opened his eyes and saw his Sarah.
“William, what the hell just happened? You called me Sarita. Does that mean you believe?”
William just looked at her, his vision blurred and his brain fuzzy. “Princess, we cannot get you with child again.” His voice sounded pained.
“Again?” she grasped his face. “William, what are you talking about?”
He blinked, then looked around. “Sarah?”
“You expected someone else?” Her tone was more brusque than she had intended. Something strange had happened to William during the last few seconds. “Has that happened to you before?”
“What?” His tone was guarded and she didn’t like that.
“You thought I was Sarita, were you with her just now?”
He was too quiet. Then his voice sounded flat.
“We talk about her a lot. You seem to think you and she are the same person. It was an honest mistake.”
She knew he was lying. She could feel it. Why would he do that? “That doesn’t wash, Professor.”
“Well, I was thinking about your situation. Dr. McAfee and I discussed that most of the day. It was a natural slip.”
“We were about to make love and you called me Sarita. You weren’t yourself.”
Haunting Refrain Page 17
