The Bell House

by Lori Titus

  She opened them when she realized that she couldn’t hear them anymore.

  “Came here to be alone, did you?”

  The voice didn’t startle her much since she had grown used to listening to him in her head.

  What frightened her was the heaviness of a weight beside her and the fact that the swing no longer moved gently in the air. Something cold crept through her flesh as she felt the outline of a shoulder pressed against her own.

  “Daddy? What’s this about?”

  He laughed. “You were never really the brightest bulb in the shop, were you sweetie? You know what I want. What we want.”

  “Who the hell is we?”

  “I told you back when they took Ahmad. There are consequences. Maybe you think your son’s death is the worst thing that can happen to you.”

  “No, what happened to Ahmad is not my fault!”

  “Diana,” her father took in something that sounded like an exasperated breath, though she could not understand how this dead man could be seated beside her.

  “It happened in my generation, and it will happen in yours if you don’t mind me,” he snarled. “You say that you believe in the Good Book. Well, it says that the wages of sin is death.”

  “No, Daddy!”

  She stood up.

  The empty swing rocked.

  In the yard, the crickets sang.

  The moon disappeared above, sailing through a bank of clouds.

  AHMAD’S DEATH HAD SENT Diana into a tailspin.

  Jenna wasn’t living in Chrysalis when it happened, but she remembered getting phone calls from both friends and relatives relating how Diana had changed. How she cut herself off from all contact with people, including close family members and friends. The mention of Ahmad’s name could drive her into hysterics.

  It wasn’t until after she saw the house that she began to wonder just how much her sister had recovered all of these years later.

  Jenna was bothered by it in some instinctual way that she couldn’t quite name. It just seemed weird that all his things should be left there that way.

  Sure, Diana was living in the other house and didn’t have to go in there and deal with his effects. The argument could be made that she liked things that way. If she didn’t ever have to clean up the house, to perform that one final ritual, maybe she could keep a piece of her heart waiting, as if he might come home one day.

  Jenna could rationalize the situation. The loss of a child was probably the worst form of all loss and surely the most unnatural—grief in its rawest form.

  She might sympathize with her sister’s grief, and tell her self that because she didn’t understand Diana’s reactions didn’t make them abnormal.

  It didn’t matter what Jenna told herself. Ahmad’s objects laying untouched after all these years sent the fine hairs on the back of her neck twitching.

  Maybe being close would be a good thing. Diana being forced to part ways with some of Ahmad’s old things, at least long enough for them to be put away, would be a healthy change. The whole thing was unpleasant, and she pushed those thoughts away. She needed to deal with her own problems.

  Jenna had started organizing some of the notes and photos her cousin had sent. She was putting together a loose family tree of sorts, starting at the bottom, out of the usual order. She was filling in the names of those that she knew first.

  Helena, Jeremiah, and Morgan: her father’s siblings.

  Kamila and Daniel: Jenna’s grandparents.

  Patricia Fox Bell . . .

  Here was where things grew murky. The great-grandmother was the first person of black descent in the family bearing the name Bell.

  She had been born on a plantation in Chrysalis, South Carolina. She would have been seventeen years old when slavery was abolished.

  According to Jenna’s notes, Patricia was a mulatto and the daughter of the plantation’s owner, Samuel Bell.

  Jenna tapped her pen.

  The father of Patricia’s children was listed as Thaddeus Bell, the eldest of Samuel’s white sons.

  Jenna had heard and read of such things before, but her discomfort at such a thought was greater seeing it here, in ink, connected to her own name.

  Sighing, she put away the book for a while. The names were alive in her mind. She wondered about what that kind of life had been like for Patricia, a slave in her own father’s house, taken advantage of, and made pregnant by one of his white sons.

  There was the evil of it, the twist that in the end all these things were done by family, against family.

  “WHAT HAPPENED LAST night? You didn’t sleep?” Henry said.

  Diana cut her eyes at him. Stirring her coffee, she hesitated before answering. If she looked out the dining room window, she imagined that she saw her father’s face, the way it had been angled towards her in the moonlight.

  “No, I couldn’t,” she said simply. She took a sip of coffee, which she usually didn’t like to drink. She kept it in the house for her husband’s benefit only, but on this morning she craved it. She was already working on her third cup.

  “You taking the girls to school?” she asked.

  Henry stopped tying his shoelaces and looked her in the eyes. “What do you mean, babe? It’s Saturday.”

  She laughed, a chuckle that felt all wrong in her chest—too high and off-pitch.

  “Yeah, it is. Sorry. Just teasing you.”

  Henry lifted an eyebrow and walked into the hallway where he could check his uniform in the mirror.

  “Doing overtime today?” she asked. “You know we could use the money.”

  “And just when I think you’re not your old self, you mention that again,” he said darkly. “Sure, I’m gonna do it. You don’t have to remind me.”

  “Groceries are getting low,” she countered.

  He scrambled in his wallet for money. He put three twenties down before her.

  “Think that’ll do it?”

  “No.”

  He pulled out another.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she replied coldly.

  “I know it’s not much, but you don’t have to be so nasty about it.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do? Jump up and look happy because you’re buying food for this week?”

  “Now that you mention it . . .”

  “Oh what, Henry, mention what? I know you’re not about to say shit to me right now, are you?”

  “I don’t have time. I suggest you feed those kids when they get up and go take yourself to bed for a nap as soon as you can. You’re downright evil this morning. You should have taken those sleeping pills.”

  She had nothing to say about that. The pills that she had been prescribed helped her sleep at night, but they left her in a haze all day. She couldn’t afford that, not when she was expected to drive children around, run errands, and do god-knows-what-all-else in the course of an ordinary day.

  Henry left without saying anything else. Happy to get the last word, probably, Diana thought. Just you wait.

  By the time she went to their room, the girls were up. She could hear them talking in hushed tones. When she opened the door, they were both sitting on the floor with coloring books and crayons between them.

  “What do y’all want for breakfast? Oatmeal?”

  “Cereal with milk,” Maya said. “Krispy Rice!”

  “What about you, Taleya?”

  She shrugged, pouting. “Whatever.”

  “I don’t have a box of ‘whatever’ in the cabinet. So you get Krispy Rice, oatmeal, or grits.”

  “I’ll have Krispy Rice.”

  “Okay, then. Get up and put away those crayons. It’s too early for you to be playing with them anyway. Go brush your teeth and come in the kitchen when you’re done.”

  Maya got up and hopped into the hallway.

  Gathering the crayons into a plastic bucket, Taleya turned away from Diana.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked the little girl.

  “Nothing, Gramma.
I just want to know. Who were you talking to last night?”

  “What do you mean who was I talking to? Little girl, you’d better speak up. What were you doing up last night, anyway?”

  “Grandma, I went to the bathroom, and when I came back you were on the porch talking to someone.”

  “Did you tell anyone? Did you mention this to Grampa?”

  Taleya shook her head. “No.”

  “Well, if you know what’s good for you, you’d better not. Did you say anything to Maya?”

  Taleya paused, and took one step backwards. “N-no Grandma.”

  “Maya!” Diana screamed. “Get back in here!”

  “Grandma . . .”

  “Get my belt,” she hissed. “Now!”

  “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE told Gramma, Taleya,” Maya whispered.

  In the dark of their room, with the shades drawn against the cloudy day and the television off, they were not supposed to speak to each other.

  “I couldn’t not tell her. You know how she is.”

  “You saw the man?” Maya pressed. “You didn’t tell her that part?”

  “Well, I’m not stupid.”

  “Yeah, but if she can see him too . . . what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, but we’re not going to say any more about it.”

  “What if we see him again?”

  “I don’t know, but if you see him again, you tell me.”

  “He’s supposed to be Gramma’s dad. How old would that make him anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Older than anybody who is supposed to be alive, that’s for sure.”

  “He was Aunt Jenna’s daddy too, wasn’t he? Maybe she knows.”

  “Uh-uh. We’re not asking her either. Promise me you won’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Gramma doesn’t really like Aunt Jenna, and you go telling her something like that . . . I don’t know, but grownups never really keep kid’s secrets. Promise me . . .”

  “I promise, I promise,” Maya spat.

  Taleya narrowed her eyes.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Really, I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  They were both quiet for a time.

  “Aren’t you happy Aunt Jenna is coming?” Maya asked.

  “Yeah,” Taleya replied softly. “But she’s sad. Uncle Stephen died, remember?”

  “Oh,” Maya said. “She must miss him.” She shivered. “He’s not going to be around here like Gramma’s daddy too, is he?”

  Chapter Three

  San Francisco, California

  Four years ago

  “Why did you stop writing in the first place?” Stephen asked.

  It was early fall, and Jenna had agreed to go on a morning run with her then new boyfriend. She hadn’t been honest with him about the fact that she was generally a couch potato and avoided the gym like the Black Death. Somewhere around the end of mile two, when she was panting for breath and beginning to see double, he’d gotten a clue. They slowed to a walk. Since he was asking a question requiring actual thought, Jenna leaned against a tree and looked at him, eyes narrowing. She felt as if all the blood in her brain had drained to her limbs in a poor attempt to keep her standing.

  “What?” she asked. Her voice sounded more defensive than she intended it to.

  There was a cool breeze stirring above. The day had started out bright, but the clouds boiled above. She hoped that it would rain so she’d have an excuse to stay inside with him for the rest of the day. There were all kinds of horizontal sports she’d prefer to engage in.

  Not that she was sure she could endure much more physical activity with the pain building in her legs.

  “You can’t be surprised,” he spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “How many women out there do you think are named Jenna Shanice Bell? Not to mention your picture on the back cover gave it totally away.”

  She jabbed him in the arm, and he feigned injury. “Shanice is not my real middle name. My publisher asked that I use it to . . . appeal to a more urban audience. They actually wanted me to use that as my first name.”

  “That sounds vaguely insulting.”

  “It was.”

  “Doesn’t answer my question, though. Why did you stop?”

  Jenna sighed, an attempt to catch some breath rather than indicate exasperation. “It was going pretty well, but I had other things to do. It got to the point where I had to make a choice between doing work for school and working on a book. With my job in between, I was just too exhausted to do it all. Trust me, I had no social life as it was.”

  “Well, I get that. But do you think that you have time now? You have been out of school for a few years. Besides, I thought the teaching profession encourages you to publish.”

  “Not the kind of work that I was writing.”

  “I read it. I think it’s fascinating.”

  He gave her that steady glare that melted her insides. Yet she was determined not to show him her weakness.

  “You’re my man. You’re supposed to say that.”

  “Regardless of my position as your man,” he said with a grin. “I don’t really know of anyone who writes what you do and pulls it off so well.”

  “It was a challenge marketing my books. No one knew what to do with stories based on an alternate version of American history. Especially with black people in them.”

  Jenna shivered. She knew that she was blushing. He’s read my work, she thought. Oh, I’m in some shit now. She sometimes wondered about what people who knew her well read into her books. They were wildly imaginative, but there was always that small bit of her personality that bled through. It was fine for strangers to read her work, but she hated when her friends did.

  “Well, it’s an industry like anything else, so I can understand maybe you’re not the flavor of the month. But do you think that you could ever see yourself doing it again?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Why?” he leaned forward, close enough that his chest pressed against hers.

  Damn. She was cornered.

  “Why do you care?” she asked.

  He laughed. “You’re scared, that’s what it is. You’re chicken shit aren’t you?”

  The most juvenile response escaped her lips before she could stop herself. “Am not!”

  “Alright then,” he said. “Prove it. Write another book.”

  JENNA CONSIDERED IT a hollow victory that she was - going to take the plunge and try writing another book. Stephen would never read a single word again.

  But Jenna was determined to do it.

  By writing down her thoughts, she’d compiled a loose, basic outline. She was going to write something based on her own family history. The book would serve two purposes: one, to keep her from going stir-crazy, and two, to allow her to dig into the history on her father’s side of the family, which she knew very little about.

  There were so many names and so many points in time that she could start with.

  Jenna nibbled the eraser of her pencil. Like all good stories, this one would have to start with a woman.

  She had only to pick which one.

  “Oh, who am I kidding,” she said aloud, letting her fingers run along the edges of the paper. She knew very well who she wanted to write about.

  The great-grandmother. The woman torn between her father’s demands and her half-brother, the man they gave her to.

  “WHAT’S THE KIDS ON punishment for now?” Henry said, taking off his work shirt.

  “Mouthing off. Being disruptive,” Diana said.

  “Huh,” he scratched the back of his neck and headed towards the refrigerator.

  “I left you a beer,” Diana called.

  “A beer?” he asked. He didn’t turn around. Henry didn’t want her to see his displeasure. He’d bought a twenty-four pack over the weekend. Just how fast was she sucking down liquor? By the looks of her beer belly, she was having at least three a day.

  He sighed
as he reached in and got the can. The taste quenched his dry mouth, tickled his throat.

  “How was work?” Diana yelled. She still had not moved from her perch in the living room window.

  “Alright,” he said. It wasn’t, really. His supervisor was talking about possible cuts. There was overtime for now, but as word had it, there were going to be layoffs in a month.

  How do you even tell your wife that? Especially when she’s stuck up in the house with these badass kids all the time? It had taken him a long time to find this job. It wasn’t the best pay, but they’d kept him on and treated him decent, overlooking the minor criminal record that kept him from better things.

  Best to ride the wave for now, he thought. Don’t tell her anything until there is something solid to tell. It had been a long time since he’d been without work, but he remembered the feeling. Diana would not have any mercy on him, either. She hadn’t before. She wouldn’t now. She never missed a chance to point out that they only lived in a house because her father had willed it to her, not because of the income he brought home.

  Henry knew and accepted a truth about his wife that few others did. She talked about being real and blunt, but beneath that, she was just a bitch.

  Looking out the kitchen window, he stared out at the horizon. The days were growing shorter. The darkness was creeping into the yard, bleeding between the trees.

  Sometimes he thought about what it would be like to just get in his car, drive away, and not come back. He was feeling more smothered every day.

  Some things that he could not hope for anymore.

  “What you feel like for dinner, baby?” Diana said.

  He jumped when he realized that she was right behind him. This made her laugh.

  “Dang, you must have had a hell of a day if you’re jumping round like a mouse.”

  “I was distracted. Can I take a minute to breathe, or is that alright with you?”

  “Alright, no need to get all huffy then,” she said. “I feel like some tuna salad. I have some from last night. You want a steak? I know you get tired of fish.”

  “Naw, I’ll wait. I’m not sure what I want.”