Page 87 of The Guests on South Battery
“But why? You were her best friend. You would be sisters.”
“But there was Anna. Button was afraid of what Anna might do to me if she knew. And the baby. I have to say I was a little afraid of Anna, too. She’d never liked me, and losing Hasell had sent her over the edge. I can’t imagine what she might have been driven to if Sumter brought me and our baby back to Charleston. Even if we moved to New York, we could never have kept it a secret from her.”
“And then the decision was taken care of for you.”
She looked down at her hands and nodded. “I would have loved another baby, although I was afraid that I’d have the same problem I had when you were a child—how the restless dead found us to be a bright beacon and wouldn’t leave you alone. What if the baby had inherited our gift? Would I make that child’s life miserable, too? I confided in Button, and she just said we’d wait and see. She was like that, you know. Always seeing the silver lining. Always believing that everything would all work out. She gave me so much confidence that I’d started to secretly plan on how I’d raise this child in New York, where nobody would care that I didn’t have a husband.” She gave a shuddering sigh. “And then the baby died, and I moved back to New York on my own as if I’d never even been pregnant.”
I reached over and took my mother’s hands in mine. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m so sorry. What an awful tragedy for you—and then to have to keep it to yourself all these years. But I’m glad I know now.” I squeezed her hands. “I’m assuming Dad doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “What would be the point? The truth is that I never stopped loving him, despite evidence to the contrary. If he knew I’d ever been pregnant with Sumter’s child, he’d always doubt it.”
I sat back. “You should tell him,” I said softly. “That’s what you’d tell me.”
She lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back. “I probably would.”
I tapped the saltshaker. “Is there any significance to this date? It’s two months after the photograph was taken.”
She took a shuddering breath. “May thirtieth was the baby’s birthday—I’m assuming Button painted that on there, because I know I didn’t. And the photograph was taken the last time I saw Sumter. He came down for a week in March, and we had a St. Patrick’s Day party—just the three of us. Button organized it, saying I was lonely and needed a little party, even if we kept it small. Sumter surprised me—just showed up out of the blue. We had a lovely time—mostly reminiscing about the happy times we’d spent on the lake when we were younger.” She paused for a moment, lost in thought. “When I let my memories take me back, I never allow them to go past that week.”
I was listening to every word, but I was also focusing on the saltshaker and the photograph. They’d been put in the bag on purpose, to show me something. When she’d finished speaking, I asked, “Who do you think put these in my bag?”
She studied the saltshaker for a moment. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’m thinking it was Hasell, since the baby would have been her half brother or sister.”
“Maybe that’s her unfinished business,” I said. “She wanted to get the secret out in the open before she moved on.”
My mother looked doubtful. “That could be it—at least part of it, anyway. It would even follow why Anna would want to obstruct that knowledge. Her hatred of me and jealousy over Sumter would not have gone away in death. But the intensity of emotions in that house doesn’t match the circumstances. There’s something else. Something connected to me. Something bigger.”
Sarah’s shrieking on the monitor jerked me out of my seat. I ran into the house and up the stairs, my mother close behind, the shrieks getting louder and louder as we approached the nursery.
The door was shut, just as I’d left it. But the bag of snow globes, which I knew I’d shoved in the back of a drawer in my room, was in the middle of the nursery floor. Sarah was pointing at it and shrieking with what I could now tell was impatience and not fright while she bounced up and down holding to the side of her crib. JJ remained sound asleep on his back, arms and legs splayed, a soft smile curving his lips and looking so much like Jack I wanted to cry.
I picked Sarah out of the crib and smoothed her hair from her forehead. She twisted in my arms so she could see the bag and continued to point. “Mmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmm.”
“What’s in there?” my mother asked.
“The broken snow globes from the Pinckneys’ attic. Sarah’s fascinated with them. She’s not allowed to touch them, but she doesn’t seem to want to. She likes to play a little guessing game with them. Personally, I try to avoid any contact with them at all, but Jayne or Nola keeps taking them out for her.”
As if in agreement, Sarah began bouncing up and down. “Mmmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmmm.”
“Here,” Ginette said, reaching her arms toward Sarah. “Why don’t you show me?”
I approached the bag with caution, carefully opening the top until I was satisfied that it held only the bases of seven broken snow globes. I stuck my hand inside and pulled one out at random and held it up. It was the Sacramento base.
Sarah thrust both of her small hands away from her, her head violently shaking from side to side.
“That would be a no,” I said.
She began pointing again at the bag, so I dropped the Sacramento base back inside and pulled out another, this one from Orlando.
She made the same gesture as before, and repeated it two more times until I pulled out the Miami base. She put her head down on my mother’sshoulder and smiled, only growing agitated when I tried to put it back in the bag.
“I don’t think she’s done,” Ginette said. “Put it up on the dresser and try another one.”
We went through the same steps two more times until I once again pulled out Orlando, but this time it met with Sarah’s approval, even eliciting a smile. I put Orlando next to Miami and tried to close up the bag, but Sarah made it clear she still wasn’t through. We continued through all seven bases while my mother and I gradually become aware that this wasn’t just a game. She—or someone—was trying to tell us something. I found it more than a little unnerving that they were communicating through my daughter.
Sarah relaxed only when we had all seven bases laid out in a row in the order she’d approved: Miami, Orlando, Memphis, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Kalamazoo.
“What on earth is this all about?” My mother approached the bases with Sarah, but the little girl had completely lost interest in the snow globes and seemed more focused on Ginette’s black beaded necklace.
