“What’s this?”
“When I first got in here, I looked inside the chest there before I dropped my bag on it. This was in there. There’s a bunch of letters inside.”
“Letters?” My conversational skills were not finely tuned in the morning. Lack of sleep would do that to a person.
“Yeah.” He was looking at me as if he thought I might regain my power of comprehension if he just waited long enough. “I don’t know who from or to, I didn’t have time to look. But if you wanted to look at them while I’m at work—there could be something in there.”
“Sure,” I said, lifting the lid to find the box tightly packed with paper. It would actually give me something to focus on besides the ghosts when I got back from Mom’s place.
“I’m gonna see if I can grab a quick shower,” he said, and headed out of the room.
I used the opportunity to go back to my own room and dress, and then ventured down the wide staircase and to the kitchen, seeking the house’s second bathroom, and then coffee. There was a Keurig machine on the counter I hadn’t noticed the previous night, and I realized Michael must’ve brought it with him. A quick search through the cupboards revealed a few mismatched mugs too. I put two out and made myself a cup of coffee, and then turned to the box of old letters I’d brought down with me.
I pulled one from the box, scanning the address, which was written in swooping cursive and addressed to Private Robert Tucker, AEF, 29th Division, 58th Brigade, 115th Regiment, France. The letter was dated September 1918.
Robert Tucker? I didn’t know anything about Filene Easter’s family history, so I wasn’t sure who this particular Tucker would be to her. But a glance at the return address added a bit of insight.
Miss Lucille Tanner, Number Three, Canterbury Lane, Singletree, Maryland, USA.
I felt like I’d heard the name Lucille a few times before. Mom had some old family documents—had this been in there? Could these have been Filene’s parents? The lawyer had said that she was born a Tucker and that she was descended from both families.
Feeling like I was breaking some kind of law, or at the very least violating someone’s privacy in a big way, I pulled the thin sheets from the envelope, letting my greedy eyes devour the missive within.
My Dearest Robert:
Thank you for your last. I never know when your letters will arrive, and though my heart burns during the long waits between receiving them, each one is celebrated and cherished.
Life here continues as ever. Mother goes on about the way your father stole her birthright and Uncle Lester continues to plot and scheme—for he is even more fixated than Mother. They are both relieved you are gone, since they clearly think distance will lead me to forget about the love we share, or allow me to become distracted with someone else. Though, honestly, all the boys are with you over there and the town feels sad and empty. I miss you, and hope you know I will never love another. I am waiting for you. We will deal with our parents when you return.
We are doing well otherwise, though as the fall sets in again I find my mind always on you, on your location, your duties. I bide my time until you return to me, my love, and eagerly await the day when I might be held in your arms once again.
Stay safe and come home soon to me.
Yours ever,
Lucille
* * *
“What’s that? One of the letters?” Michael asked, striding into the kitchen, his hair damp and his skin freshly shaven. He smelled clean as he came to stand beside me, like soap and spring and fresh laundry. I wanted to lean into him, breathe deeply, relax.
“Yeah. They’re love letters.”
He chuckled. “Really? Whose?”
“Robert Tucker and Lucille Tanner. Dated 1918. And Robert must’ve been deployed overseas. Look.” I showed him the front of the envelope and Michael stared at it for a moment.
“I’ve heard of Robert. We talk about him like a war hero in our family. But I was never sure quite how we were related.”
“I guess maybe he was Filene’s dad.”
We exchanged a glance, and I sensed he was as interested and curious about our shared history as I was, and then Michael skimmed the letter. “World War I,” he said. Then his eyes darted to me and his lips pressed into a line, almost as if he was deciding whether or not to tell me something. “The 29th Division saw some major action at the end of the war. They fought in Meuse-Argonne. It was a bloody battle.”
I smiled up at him, surprised. “Bit of a history buff, are we?”
“It was this guy. Knowing we had a hero in the family, a vet. I did a bunch of research when I was about Daniel’s age.”
“Well, he must’ve made it home,” I mused. “No mention here of a baby. I don’t think they’d gotten married yet.”
Michael folded the letter back up carefully and tucked it into the envelope, setting it gingerly onto the table in front of me. He eyed the box of letters with something like longing, his inner history buff no doubt curious about what else was tucked into these old envelopes. “I better get going. See you in a few hours?”
“Okay,” I said. And as he picked up his keys and headed out the back door, I was hit with a strange wave of emotion. Longing? Familiarity? I could see this same scene playing out in another lifetime—me saying goodbye to my husband as he headed out the door to work.
I pushed down the sentimental idea. That was not what this was. This was a business arrangement. And I needed to focus. Today I’d call my supervisor and inform him that my leave of absence would be at least six months. Perhaps that would have been a wise thing to do before diving headlong into this agreement, but wise had not been my strong suit lately. Then I’d read a couple more letters if I was brave enough to be in the house, and then I’d go to Mom’s. After that, I’d figure out what I needed to sleep in the room upstairs without running to Michael every night.
13
Tanner Trouble
Michael
The store was a bit of a disaster, since I hadn’t been there all day the day prior. Technically, Virgil was assistant manager, and some days (against my better judgment), I left him in charge. And it sometimes turned out just fine.
But this morning there were deliveries piled in the warehouse at the back of the store, an enormous line of customers was waiting, and signs plastered on everything that said, “HUGE SALE - CLOSING - EVERYTHING MUST GO.” What were my cousins up to now? Fury began to pipe a hot path through my veins.
I noticed that the entire selection of gas grills off to one side of the counter was also marked “FREE - TAKE WHAT YOU CAN CARRY!” Why on Earth would we be giving away some of the most expensive and popular items in the store? This was not happening.
I ripped down the signs that lined the aisle as I approached my cousins, who both stood behind the counter, looking nonchalant as ever, despite the chaos.
“Are we having a sale?” I asked, trying to contain the anger threatening to spill out of me.
“Guess so,” Virgil said. “You know, a little notice next time would be good, boss.”
“Yeah, Mike.” Emmett chimed in. He spoke so rarely it caught me off guard and I stared at his round ruddy face for a beat, wondering if he was going to say more, but that was it.
Virgil pulled a hand down his long spiky beard. “I mean—I don’t even know how to ring half this shit up.” He motioned to a customer standing in front of him holding our entire inventory of weed blocker in rolls in his arms. “He says the sign said it was free.”
I stepped behind the counter, trying to push down the panic rising in me at the thought of people just walking out with inventory. Our margins were thin as it was. I tried to keep prices fair—these folks were my neighbors, after all, but I couldn’t just give everything away. I looked out at the line of people, who in total were standing there, ready to relieve me of thousands of dollars-worth of merchandise. I wondered what Virge and Emmett had sent out the door already this morning.
“Folks, hi there. Hi. Can yo
u give me a second here and listen?”
The crowd grumbled into silence, the line stilling as people held their treasures, hoping for a ridiculous deal I couldn’t offer. This had the Tanner stink on it, and anger welled inside me, making it tough to speak. Had Addie known about this? Had she been playing sweet while her family tried to ruin me?
“Thanks. So, listen, there’s been some kind of mistake here, and I hate telling you that, but I’m guessing this is a prank, and I’m pretty sure if we could just locate a member of the Tanner clan, we could probably get confirmation of that.”
Helen Manchester pushed a huge wheeled barbecue from the line and glared at me. “This grill is free. Says so right here.”
I liked old Mrs. Manchester, usually. She was great comic relief, but she was also irrational, belligerent and sometimes altogether terrifying. Today she wore a hat that said, “Give me a reason to shoot.” I looked behind her, hoping maybe one of her granddaughters was accompanying her, but didn’t see anyone that seemed to be in charge of the ninety-something woman trying to steal my most expensive barbecue.
“I wish it was, Helen,” I told her. “I wish I could give you all the things you want and need, but I’d be out of business by tonight if I did that.” The crowd grumbled, but a few people moved to put their items back, which was a relief. “What I can do,” I announced, “is offer you all ten percent off whatever you have in your hands right now.” It pained me to do it, but I had been planning some big holiday promotions anyway, maybe volume would make up for the loss. The Tanners had managed to get more people into the store than I’d seen in months.
“Better’n nothing,” came a man’s voice from the back of the line.
Some people shot me dirty looks and left the store, dropping work gloves and shovels, bags of mulch and feed right where they’d been standing. So much for being kind to our neighbors. Others seemed happy to get a discount. Helen Manchester made for the door with the grill, but I was happy to see her granddaughter Tess arriving just beyond the glass, exasperation etched into her features. “Gran!” She said. “What are you doing? We already have a great grill.”
“This one is free!” The old woman shot me a look over her shoulder, daring me to contradict her.
Tess met my eyes then and I shook my head.
“We’ll just put this back over here,” she said, wheeling the grill off to the side of the front doors. “And I’ll treat you to a Manhattan at the Shack before lunch, okay?”
The old woman crossed her thin arms, but said, “It’s the least you could do.” I wished I had a stiff drink right about then.
I spent the rest of the morning offering discounts, and when the people just kept coming, I figured out there was also a huge sign planted in the town square advertising the liquidation of my inventory. By mid-afternoon, the mess was somewhat sorted, and I had a few minutes to breathe.
“It was those sisters, I bet,” Virgil said, as we tried to figure out which members of the Tanner family might’ve pulled this particular prank.
“Who, Addie and Paige? Amberlynn?” I couldn’t imagine Addie’s sisters doing this. I’d met Paige a few times, and she seemed very rational, the type to remain impartial in a fight. Or a feud. Amberlynn was younger, and I didn’t know her as well. I supposed it could have been her, but not alone.
“No,” Virgil shook his head. “The one with the walker and the other one.”
The image almost made me laugh, except he might have been right. “They’ve got that cousin, too, right? Lottie’s older brother or something?” I could see Virgil working himself up to revenge.
I nodded. There was a Tanner who’d come back to town recently. Arthur, I thought. And he would have been pretty loyal to Lottie, who had been the most recent feud victim. “That might be it. I’ll ask Addie about it.” I’d know by her expression if she had been involved, I thought. She didn’t seem like a great liar—her face was too open, too trusting, with those huge brown eyes and that sad smile. I forced myself not to think about how scared and vulnerable—and hot—she’d looked the night before, clutching her pillow to her chest, miles of bare legs coming from the very short hem of an old T-shirt. If I hadn’t been slightly terrified I might have tried to talk her into my own sleeping bag instead of helping her set up hers.
“Forget asking Addie,” Virgil said. “Time to plot revenge.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said, feeling exhausted by the whole idea. Yeah, I’d just lost thousands of dollars, but what if we took revenge. What would we lose next time? “Can’t we just let it die?”
Emmett and Virgil shook their heads resolutely. They lived for this feud. I knew I couldn’t stop them.
“No one gets hurt, okay?” I reminded them. Back in the day, I’d heard stories about much more dangerous activities—tampering with brakes and setting fires. At least the feud had civilized to some degree. I couldn’t imagine losing a family member to something so ridiculous, though it would certainly fuel the anger that had kept the feud going this long.
I hadn’t planned to hang around the store long, but it took longer than I’d hoped to put the place back in order, and I wasn’t completely sure I could trust my cousins to be here on their own, but by mid-afternoon, I felt like it would be okay for me to leave, but this time I gave explicit instructions about what needed to happen in my absence. When Virgil and Emmett were sufficiently busy, I headed back toward the old house on the top of the hill. I was already exhausted, and cleaning would not normally have been something I looked forward to. But Addie was here, and for some reason I was looking forward to seeing her again, despite the feud.
Driving around the house to the back, I encountered a sight I had certainly not been expecting—four different cars were parked on the overgrown drive, blocking the little garage and making it look like Addie had decided to have a party in my absence.
“What is going on?” I wondered aloud as I pulled my truck up behind a VW beetle that was painted a frightening shade of pink and in questionable condition. I’d seen the car around town, but had no idea who it belonged to. I supposed I was about to find out.
“Addie?” I called, stepping through the back door and into the kitchen. There was a thick aroma of something hanging in the air, something I couldn’t quite identify. There were also numerous pots on the stovetop filled with liquids of various shades, and voices coming from upstairs. Did she invite people over to make soup? As I followed the voices and the footsteps, the smell became stronger, and when I finally reached the master bedroom, the source revealed itself.
Three women stood around the room with Addie, all of them gray-haired and draped in layers of baggy clothing that looked like it might have been made from old curtains or maybe lampshades. Their wrists jangled with metal bracelets, they wore slippers that they might have stolen from Aladdin himself, and they were holding smoking sticks in the air and chanting. Addie stood at the edge of their small circle, wringing her hands and looking worried. The sight of her looking so upset made me feel upset, but it was also a little confusing to find this scene—and even Addie didn’t look like she knew exactly what was going on here.
“Uh . . .” I wasn’t sure exactly what was happening, and I was less sure how to interrupt it to get an explanation.
“Michael,” Addie said, spotting me. “Hi.” Her face slipped into a glowing smile before quickly turning wary.
“Um. Hi?” I glanced at the three women, who still had their eyes closed and were ignoring me with a tenacity I’d only witnessed previously in my ex-wife.
“They’re cleansing,” Addie said, gesturing at the women.
This was unlike any scrubbing technique I’d seen before and I greatly preferred the scent of lemons or even bleach to whatever this pungent smoky smell was.
“I brought some Lysol from the store,” I said. “Would that work better?”
“Young man, do you mind?” One of the women snapped, turning to glare at me.
“I’m not sure. I might mind. What e
xactly are you doing?”
The woman sighed and looked at Addie before explaining to me, in the same tone she might use with a repeatedly disobedient puppy, “We are cleansing the house.”
I had an inkling what this was about, based on the chanting and the skeptical look on Addie’s face. I’d seen movies about witches before. “Of?”
“Spirits, of course,” the woman said. “But now you’ve interrupted and we’ll have to begin again. I honestly don’t know if this will be effective at this point.” She looked pretty exasperated, so I figured it might be best to just let her and nutty buddies finish up. I motioned to Addie and she followed me out into the hallway.
“What’s going on?”
“They confirmed that the house is haunted. We’re trying to clear it of spirits.” She sounded like she believed in this about as much as I did.
“With burning sticks and fashion from the seventies?”
“They’re smudging sage.” Addie crossed her arms defensively.
“A proven technique for making the house smell funny, for sure.”
“And for cleansing negative energy.”
I watched her face, looking for any sign that she actually believed this would work. Her manner was defensive, but her face made me think she wasn’t buying into it. Her intelligent eyes looked tired, a little glazed. “How’s it going so far?”
“I don’t know. They’ve been here for hours.” She dropped her arms and looked up from beneath dark lashes. “I didn’t know what else to do, Michael. I went to Mom’s but she told me she didn’t need me this morning, so I came back up here. I was trying to clean the bathroom upstairs when that screaming noise echoed through the house. It scared me to death. I called my mom from the driveway, and she sent these ladies over. They’re proven spirit whisperers from Center County.”
Falling Into Forever Page 9
