Page 30 of The Guests on South Battery
I smiled. “Will do. Well, then, we’ll see you in a couple of hours. Hopefully we’ll find something in the archives that will tell us more about the house. Maybe even something about the family.”
I kissed the children good-bye, then turned toward the door. Jayne called me back.
“Melanie?”
“Yes?”
“Nola’s friend—Lindsey. Do you know her well?”
I shook my head. “I met her the first time when you did. She says her mother and I went to college together—I don’t remember her. I need to pull out my yearbook to see if I recognize her. Why?”
JJ reached his arms to be picked up again and Jayne lifted him, her eyes focused on his little face. I couldn’t help wondering if she was using him as a reason to avoid eye contact with me.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s just, well, you know how some people seem... haunted?”
“A little,” I said, glad her focus was on JJ.
“Well, that’s the sense I get from her. As if she’s being dogged by something.”
“Because she brought the Ouija board?”
“No,” Jayne said, finally looking at me. “I think because she reminded me a little of myself when I was that age. All alone, even in a roomful of people.”
I nodded, unwilling to admit that I knew exactly what she was talking about. It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d felt the same way—before Jack, and before I’d reconciled with my mother and father. There was something about being raised with absent parents that made a permanent scar in a person’s psyche.
I pondered my next question for a moment. “Since you’re kind of achild-rearing expert, do you think I should limit Nola’s association with her?”
Jayne shook her head. “Nola’s pretty grounded, which is a tribute to both her own strength and the parental guidance she’s received from you and Jack. I think she and Lindsey could be good for each other.”
I nodded. “Thanks. And I’m not going back to the office when we return, so you can have the rest of the day and evening off.”
“Thank you.” She looked up at me. “I’m kind of hoping you don’t find anything in the archives.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Really, I don’t. My lawyers have explained that there’s enough money in the estate to do the restorations, which will allow the house to be sold for a pretty hefty sum. I won’t have to worry about money after that, which is a nice thing to know.” She paused. “It’s just...”
“It’s just...?” I prompted.
“Do you ever think that it’s just easier ignoring bad stuff in the hopes that it will go away?”
I thought for a moment, debating whether I should tell her that I’d cut my teeth on that very same philosophy. And remembering the invitation downstairs that I’d tucked beneath a bill, hoping it might get overlooked and forgotten. I decided that as her employer and the mother of two, I needed to come up with a more mature response. “It probably is easier,” I said. “But in my experience, the bad stuff isn’t like a mosquito bite—you know, leave it alone so it disappears instead of scratching it and making it worse. Usually the things you don’t want to deal with get worse the longer you wait.”
She contemplated me for a long moment. “Do you believe in...” She stopped suddenly, and I wondered if she’d also felt the temperature in the room drop. JJ continued to babble, but Sarah looked up, then stared at the door expectantly.
“Do I believe in what?” I asked, remembering Jayne being pushed down the stairs the previous day. And her opposition to the Ouija board.
Sarah began whimpering and Jayne bent to her eye level, her answer lost as she soothed my daughter and I took the opportunity to look around the room. But all I could sense was that dark curtain again, pulling tightly closed and blocking my view.
I bent to kiss the top of each baby’s head, then retreated to the door. “We’ll be back soon.”
We said good-bye and I closed the door behind me. I walked slowly down the stairs, fairly certain I knew what she’d been about to ask me, and still unsure I knew how to answer.
CHAPTER 11
“Was there anything in the mail?” Jack asked, one hand on the steering wheel, the other thrown casually around the back of my seat. The Fireproof Building on Chalmers, where the South Carolina Historical Archives were kept, wasn’t that far and Jack had suggested we walk, but my feet were close to bleeding because I’d worn my favorite pre-pregnancy heels all morning. Despite the numb tingling on one side of each foot and the blisters on the other, I’d promised my beautiful shoes that I’d wear them for the rest of the day before I added them to the shrine at the back of my closet.
Jack smelled of shampoo and soap andJack, and I couldn’t make myself ask him to remove his arm until he apologized. For what, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I felt unsettled, and that it had started when I walked into the nursery and saw him and Jayne and our children together. I’d felt somehow superfluous, my old insecurities resurfacing like a rash that hadn’t completely faded. Because, deep down, I still believed that capturing Jack’s attention had been a fluke, and that one day he’d wake up and really see me as the pathetic, awkward, and insecure teenager I’d once been and was afraid I still was.
