Falling Into Forever

by Delancey Stewart

I read out loud:

  “Matthew Elias Tucker, local esteemed townsman, was found shot dead early Friday morning on the edge of his property at 54 Maple Lane by the local constable on his morning rounds. He is survived by his son Elias and his wife Ina.

  “It is surmised that the suspected murder is one more dastardly deed in the ongoing feud between the Tucker and Tanner families. As readers surely recall, last summer saw the grisly devastation of the Arnold Tanner’s barn and livestock after he attempted to assert his ownership over the property at Maple Lane.

  “With no witnesses or any real evidence, it is likely this murder will remain a mystery, but there is no doubt it will fuel the ongoing animosity between the two families.”

  I finished reading and stared at Addie. “You said ghosts were people who had unfinished things or wanted revenge, right?”

  “Yeah.” Addie’s expression was dark.

  “So if Matthew Tucker was killed by a Tanner, right here on this property, then I could see him wanting revenge.” I still didn’t believe in ghosts, but if there was going to be one, I could see it being this guy.

  “And haunting the house where he was killed,” she finished, eyes wide.

  We stared at the article for a moment and then Addie pushed the other papers toward me. “What’s this?”

  I unfolded the papers and spread them between us. “It’s a land deed,” I said, reading. “For plots 54, 55, and 56 in Singletree Township. To Matthew Tucker.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

  I shrugged. “The mystery grows.”

  “Wait, what’s the date on that?” She asked, pushing the deed at me again.

  “1828.”

  She stared at the paper for a long minute. Then looked up at me. “Well, if those plots are the one this house sits on, then that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mom found a record of the land purchase. And it was bought by a Tanner, not a Tucker. In 1827, not 1828.”

  I felt my brow wrinkle. Mysteries were not my strong suit and it was getting late. Plus, I was on my second big glass of wine. “And?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. If a Tanner bought it, why did the deed say Tucker?”

  “No idea.”

  “Tuckers stole it.” She said this very matter of factly. Like she believed it. I felt the knee-jerk reaction starting inside me, but pushed it down.

  “I thought we’d gotten past all that feud stuff and had moved on to solving a mystery together, Addie.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “If the shoe fits,” she said, but there was a comic lilt to her voice.

  “It’s too late for this kind of confusion,” I said.

  She glanced at her watch. “Oh, it is late. And Dan comes tomorrow?”

  Though I loved my son, and I lived for the time I spent with him, I felt a twinge of sadness that this close quiet time with Addie would come to an end in the morning.

  Normally it would be Shelly’s week, but she said she’d picked up some extra shifts and wouldn’t be around in the evenings when he might need her. It was confusing—Shelly acted like she wanted to keep Dan from me, but then she also seemed to enjoy the flexibility that having me in his life offered her. That was Shelly. “He does.”

  And with that, we each went to bed and miraculously, slept the night through with no otherworldly screaming.

  22

  Vintage ‘Vette

  Addison

  Friday morning arrived with a thunderstorm, and Dan was delivered by Shelly, who gave me evil looks the entire time she was in the house, which was much longer than anyone seemed to want her there. Evidently she was taking some different shifts at The Shack, and needed to drop Dan off early.

  “Mom,” Daniel said after Shelly had interrupted breakfast and then demanded Michael give her a tour of the house to prove it was a safe place for Daniel to be for the weekend, “you can go now.”

  “That’s not very loving,” she scolded him, looking hurt. I felt a little bad for Shelly. But Dan had sounded like he was trying for a joke that just didn’t go off well.

  “I’m sorry,” he said immediately, and he gave her a warm hug that softened my heart a little bit toward her.

  “All right,” she said. “But if anything at all happens, you call me,” she told her son.

  “I still don’t think he needed a cell phone. He’s twelve,” Michael said, in a voice that suggested he didn’t want to rekindle the fight they’d had when she’d arrived, but that he also didn’t think the conversation was over.

  “How else is he supposed to reach me if he needs me?”

  “The same way he always has? On my phone.”

  “If he doesn’t feel safe, he needs to be able to tell me.”

  Michael took a step back, looking as if she’d slapped him. I had dueling impulses—one, I wanted to go to him, put a hand on his back or his shoulder to comfort him, and two, I wanted to step between them and give Shelly a piece of my mind. Michael was probably the best father I’d ever seen, though I honestly didn’t have a lot of experience with fathers in general.

  “Fine,” Michael said, his voice tight. “He’ll call you if he needs you.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “Bye Mom.”

  Shelly hugged her son again, shot me a glare, and then turned and left. Daniel disappeared up the stairs.

  And it was then that I noticed that the box with the ring, the one we’d left sitting open on the table the night before, was now empty. Had she taken it? Had we forgotten to put it back? Where was the ring?

  “Michael?”

  He rubbed a hand through his hair, sending it all standing on end as his shoulders slumped. “Yeah?”

  “Did you put the ring somewhere? For safekeeping?”

  His lips pulled up in confusion and he shook his head. “No, why?”

  “It’s gone.” I pointed to the empty box on the table.

  We both stared at it for a minute as Daniel’s footsteps overhead thumped and clunked.

  “You don’t think Shelly took it, do you?” I asked, wondering if he was thinking the same thing.

  “She wouldn’t,” he said. “I mean . . . I don’t think she would do that.”

  I didn’t know what to think. “Maybe we should put the rest of the stuff back in the safe for now? Just in case we need it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, ruffling his hair again.

  “I’ll look around,” I assured him. “Maybe it just fell off the table or something.” I doubted this could have happened, but also didn’t insist that either his ex was a thief in addition to being a less-than-delightful houseguest or that our ghosts liked shiny objects.

  The window replacement was beginning today, and the workmen arrived soon after Shelly had departed, and by the time Michael had taken Daniel to school and headed off to work, the house was abuzz with activity, so much so that I felt comfortable going up to the attic alone to sort through the letters and pictures there. I wanted to see if I could get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the land deed. If there was a record showing the land had been sold to a Tanner, why did the deed to the land say Tucker?

  It was like a stroll through history, pulling open newspaper clippings and flipping through ancient photos. The headlines were interesting, though I didn’t have a lot of historical context for most:

  PROHIBITION! Jan. 16, 1919 Momentous Day in World’s History

  * * *

  Mrs. Ross Takes Office - First Female Governor in US - 1925

  * * *

  Scopes Found Guilty of Teaching Evolution - 1925

  There were stacks of papers, many of them discussing banal news of the day, but others sporting headlines that had me remembering high school history:

  Herbert Hoover Elected! 1930

  * * *

  U.S. Prohibition Ends - Uncertainty Faces Nation - 1933

  I spent the better part of the day upstairs, lost in my exploration through history.
There was no rhyme or reason I could find as to why certain events seemed to warrant the keeping of the front page while others did not, but reading about each event felt like peering through a time machine. And when the foreman’s voice rang through the house in late afternoon, letting me know they were heading out for the day, it was like being awakened from a strange nap rife with odd and dusty dreams.

  I went downstairs to see the workmen off, but before they left, the foreman asked about the garage. “Are we replacing those windows too?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “Only, we don’t have a key.”

  He shook his head. “If we’re replacing windows, shouldn’t matter. We can do it from the outside as easily as inside on these old buildings.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling suddenly a little less secure than I had before. “Well, okay then.”

  The total cost to replace all the windows in the house with energy efficient double-paned glass was enormous, but Michael and I had agreed it was important if anyone ever planned to actually live in the house again. And since our six months would take us right through a cold Singletree winter, it would be good for us, too.

  “We’ll get the rest done by mid-week,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, and watched the trucks pull out of the driveway as the sun began to set.

  I shivered, heading back into the big house alone. With no one else around, I was reminded that the place was most likely haunted, and I checked my watch, hoping Michael might be home sooner rather than later. Before I could become too worried, I heard Michael’s truck rumbling up the driveway.

  Daniel, Michael and I spent the weekend mostly outside, pulling weeds in the yard, while the window crew continued working on the upper levels of the house.

  The guys didn’t work Sunday, but they were back bright and early on Monday morning. I’d seen Michael off to the store, and had resumed my weed-pulling out in the yard. My mother had already called to give me an earful about missing Sunday dinner when a voice came floating through the greenery about mid-day. “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?” I pushed my hair out of my face and pulled off my gloves, going to meet the foreman in the middle of the yard near the garage.

  “There’s a tarp in there over the car. You okay with us going ahead with the work? That oughta keep the dust off it.”

  I glanced toward the garage, where the men had removed the front window. I knew there was a car in there, but I was imagining it was as old and dusty already as the rest of the house. “Probably doesn’t matter,” I said. “I mean, a little dust won’t hurt it, right?

  The man looked weirdly uncertain. “I mean, I guess not. Some people are particular about their cars.”

  “Well, don’t like, drop a brick on it or anything, right?” I laughed. “And could you leave the door unlocked when you’re done in there?”

  “Leave it unlocked?” He looked surprised by this request, and I thought I’d told him we didn’t have the key, but I figured he had bigger things on his mind.

  “Yes please,” I said.

  “Sure thing.” He walked away, shaking his head, like I was the silliest client he’d had in a while.

  Whatever. I went back to the never-ending task of pulling the overgrowth from the yard.

  When the contractors finished the windows, I told Michael and Daniel that the garage was finally unlocked and we went out there together. What lay inside was something none of us had expected. Well, none of us, except maybe Daniel.

  We pushed open the creaky door and stood inside, letting our eyes adjust to the dark interior. In the middle of the space sat a car, covered entirely in a shredded tarp. In the space where the tarp had been eaten or just aged away, hints of what lay beneath peeked through. Shiny red paint gleamed in contrast to the dark colorless space around it.

  “What is this?” Michael asked, reaching toward one of the shiny patches as Daniel practically bounced in excitement.

  “Let’s find out,” I suggested.

  Together, we slid the old tarp off the car.

  “A Corvette!” he practically screamed when the car beneath was revealed.

  There, sitting in the middle of the ancient garage, a gorgeous older model sports car. I would never have identified it on my own, but evidently Daniel knew his vintage ‘vettes.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed, his voice suddenly reverent. “Dad, it’s a 1958 Roadster.”

  “Language,” Michael said, but his tone was so distracted by the bright red car in front of us that I was surprised he’d managed to remember his parental duties at all.

  “This is amazing,” I said. It was swoopy and cool, and I suddenly understood why the contractor had looked at me like I was crazy when I’d told him not to drop a brick on it. This was not what I’d envisioned sitting out in the garage.

  “This is amazing,” Daniel said, running a hand gently over the angled fender. “This thing is a collector’s item. Super old.”

  Compared to the rest of the house, this was a relatively young antique, but Daniel’s perspective was probably different than mine, considering he was twelve.

  “Dad, can we drive it?”

  Michael looked unsure. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on!” Daniel sounded very much his age as he prepped himself for a tween-style tantrum.

  “Dan,” Michael said, meeting his son’s eyes. “We don’t have the keys, for one thing. And for another, we need to make sure the thing is insured before we take it out. What if something happened? Besides that, we probably need to get it serviced. And maybe appraised.”

  “This car is super valuable,” Daniel said, nodding in his sudden agreement.

  “And I’m not sure a guy like me should be driving a super valuable car,” Michael said.

  “I’ll drive!” Dan volunteered.

  “Oh, well, I am definitely sure a guy like you should not be driving a super valuable car.”

  Daniel circled the car, and then popped open the door and slid into the driver’s seat, a huge smile taking over his young face as he took the steering wheel. “Oh, Dad.”

  Michael stood from where he’d been examining the bumper. “Yeah?”

  “The keys are right here.” Daniel pulled them from the ignition and held them up, beaming.

  “Great,” Michael said, holding out his hand.

  “So as soon as it’s insured, we’ll take it for a drive, right?”

  It had taken a lot to get Daniel out of the garage, including promises of insurance and impending rides.

  The next few weeks passed quickly, filled with days spent directing contractors, stripping wallpaper, and demolishing the existing kitchen. Michael and I fell into a strangely comforting routine, laced with something that felt like friendship—and a little bit like something more.

  Daniel came and went—he stayed in the house for a week at a time, and even Shelly seemed to settle into something that felt less like bucking every little change.

  The screams still came—only at night—but in some ways I had begun to accept them as part of the house. I’d gotten used to them, and had settled into sleeping in my own room without feeling terrified. Nothing came with the screams, except the occasional scrabbling sound or a crash of something in the attic falling over again. But if the ghosts in the house limited themselves to screaming and staying in the attic, I decided it was the kind of haunting I could live with. The only really disturbing thing about our ghosts was their tendency to steal.

  “Your watch now? Was it expensive?” I stared at Michael across the dining room table. We’d taken to eating take out in the dining room since the kitchen was currently being remodeled.

  “I’m a high school graduate who runs a farm supply store. Do you think I was wearing a Rolex?” He smiled at me across the table, his eyes gleaming.

  “Well, no, but . . . still.”

  “Yeah. I liked that watch.”

  “So, let me see if I have the tally so far. The ring, my silver stud earrings, the silver pill container I
left in the bathroom, and now your watch?”

  “Yes. The ghosts like shiny objects, evidently.”

  “So weird.”

  “Everything about this house is weird. Maybe the garage most of all.”

  “Right?” I said, laughing.

  Now, sitting at the table in our increasingly livable haunted house, Michael smiled at me and my heart picked up a quicker rhythm inside my chest. “Yeah, what in the world should we do with that thing?”

  I shook my head. “No idea.” I’d continued sorting through the documents in the house, but hadn’t found any mention of a car collector or race car driver in the past inhabitants. Some mysteries remained to be solved.

  Since Michael had had the cable installed, we’d taken to watching movies in the evenings in the parlor, where we’d recently installed a flat screen and a couple very comfortable couches, along with an area rug, a coffee table, and a couple lamps. We figured if we were going to live here for six months, we couldn’t sit on the floor or folding chairs the whole time. Michael brought a few things from his house, and I picked out a couple too.

  Each night we’d take a glass of wine and sit together, watching the big screen and enjoying each other’s company. But it was becoming increasingly hard to just sit—something was growing in the air between us.

  “We’ve been here six weeks now,” I pointed out as we settled one night, the movie ready to play in front of us.

  “Yeah?” Michael said. “It’s gone fast.”

  It had. The house, and Michael, had become my happy place. I still went home for Sunday dinners and helped Mom at the Tin, and even Lottie seemed to have accepted the strange new arrangement. She’d laid off pushing me about living with a Tucker, and I wondered if it was in part because she had been spending more time with a Tucker, too.

  The house, and even the ghostly sounds and occasionally terrifying happenings, felt like my home now. And Michael—well, I wasn’t sure exactly what he was, but I knew he was important to me.