Hauntings of the Heart Read online

  Minnie had given each of them a detailed list of what each guest room would host. Edith hadn’t delved far enough into the packet. “Elvis sightings aren’t considered in the realm of paranormal.”

  Gordon smirked, probably at the edge in her voice. She shot him a poisoned-dart look. He raised an eyebrow. If only looks could turn someone to stone. It made her reconsider her costume, but she didn’t have time to dig out her Medusa wig. Let him try wrangling Edith and Dinah and put an event like this together in a week. He was lucky she’d kept them on task after the CSI digression. Those tangents usually ended with comparing the physical attributes of Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood and that youngster Harrison Ford, then quoting Indiana Jones movies.

  “Elvis is going to be performing in the back yard, so there will be music and dancing. He promised to bring extra scarves. You’ll need to pick him up from the bus station in an hour.”

  “Okay, sounds better.” Edith made a note on her packet. “What about the food?”

  “I’ve arranged with the diner to provide beverages and appetizers with a Halloween theme.”

  “Are they going to do those hot dogs wrapped in croissants that look like mummies?” Dinah asked.

  Minnie consulted her checklist. “Yes. They’re also donating all the apples for bobbing, and designing a potions and concoctions buffet. Things that bubble and smoke, bowls of brains, eyeball stew, you get the idea. It’s all listed in your packet.”

  “Iguana intestines. Sounds tasty,” Gordon commented. He was lucky she wasn’t feeding everyone his intestines. “What else do we have to cover?”

  They worked through the list, occasionally asking questions, but mostly satisfied with the plans. Minnie hoped they’d wrap the meeting up quickly, but Dinah had questions about everything. They didn’t have time to drag this out; there was still a lot of work to do.

  “I have one question left, and maybe I should direct this one to Gordon.” Dinah shifted in her seat and eyed Gordon over her glasses. Minnie bristled at the mention of Gordon’s name and Dinah’s insinuation that Minnie couldn’t handle everything. “Are we going to have flushing toilets by the time the party starts, or do we need to call Blue Bayou?”

  No one in the group could miss her pointed gaze at the boxes of pipe fittings in the hallway.

  Minnie jumped in before Gordon could answer. It was her house, after all. It wouldn’t hurt to remind him of that. “We are not having porta-potties anywhere on the premises,” she snapped. She forced herself to calm down. The meeting was almost over. She could hold it together in front of Gordon for a few more minutes. “Mark hired some part-time people and they’re wrapping up now.” She ignored the face Gordon made. He’d offered to call his friend again, but she’d declined. He might be putting up the money for the repairs, but she needed him to know she wasn’t going to depend on him. Mark was handling everything just fine. “We have plenty of time to get everything set up.” If they ever wrapped this meeting up.

  “Yes. It’ll all be done. If she’d allowed my friends to help, it would have been done three days ago.” Gordon stared at her so fiercely she was tempted to cover her chest with her papers to block any penetration. Instead she pressed them down into her lap. She refused to study them like trigonometry crib notes; she was braver than that. She dared him to blink first. “Minnie handled it all by herself. All she needed from me was the money.” Gordon shuffled his papers and chucked them on her desk.

  Minnie bit back the hiss threatening to erupt. “That was low.”

  “I offered to help with everything for the benefit.” Gordon inched forward, his elbows braced against the arms of his chair. His voice tightened and Minnie knew he was irritated. Well, he could join the club. “Anything you needed.”

  “I’ve learned not to depend on your help.” The hard way, she added to herself.

  “When have I ever let you down?”

  He didn’t just go there. She couldn’t believe it. After his big confession the other night, he’d doused the wound with whiskey again. “You abandoned me when I needed you most! When I was alone in that Philippine village, delivering our dead baby, all I wanted was your support. All I wanted was a letter from you, saying how much you anticipated meeting our son.” She was on her feet now, shaking her papers at him. “Instead, I got nothing. Not one word that you cared about us. Not one word you wanted anything to do with us.” She whipped her papers down on her desk. “Not even a letter to say you were dumping us for someone your mother had hand-picked. Depend on you…? HA!”

  The papers fluttered to the floor in the silence. Minnie’s heart pounded in her ears and her breath came in short gasps. She didn’t get this out of breath in Zumba.

  “Hookey-tooters, Minnie!” Edith exclaimed. Her face whipped from Gordon to Minnie. She grabbed the cuff of Dinah’s World’s Best Grandma sweatshirt and stood. “We’ll just be going. Everything for the party looks fine. We can’t be late for Elvis.” They hurried around Gordon. Dinah almost tipped the coffeepot off the tray by the door with her purse, but still managed to snag three cookies as they scooted toward the door.

  Gordon sat there with much the same expression she’d imagined when he’d read her letter. A little bit dumbfounded, a little bit annoyed, and a whole lot uncomfortable. Except here he couldn’t tear up her message and toss it in the trash.

  She flexed her fists. He couldn’t run away. He couldn’t ignore her now. He had to look into her eyes. She held his gaze, daring him to snub her again. Her chest heaved as his mouth started to move. Suddenly she was twenty-four again, anticipating his letters and his reaction to the news.

  This time she knew. She knew he was going to reject her again. Before the first sound escaped his mouth, she was out of the room and down the hall. She slammed the door to her apartment before she heard his question.

  “You were pregnant?”

  * * *

  Gordon returned to his room, feeling for the first time since he’d come back to Carterville as if he was an intruder. He’d stood at the end of the hallway, staring at Minnie’s door for several minutes before daring to knock. He’d rapped gently, but the sound echoed despite the activity in the Bower. Minnie hadn’t answered, and that hadn’t surprised him. He’d tried the doorknob and found it locked. He wanted to go to her and plead for the whole story, but perhaps time to breathe would be better. For them both.

  His mind rewound her words. They stuttered at the word ‘son’ like a scratched record as he climbed the stairs to his room. Son…Ours…Skip! Son…Ours ... Skip!

  Once in his room, he grabbed blindly for the arm of the chair and gripped it as if it would keep him from washing away in the turbulent sea of understanding he’d shipwrecked in. Son. Minnie’s. Ours.

  No one he loved had escaped suffering.

  The night before she’d left. He leaned forward, shaking his head. It couldn’t be. They’d—only once. It couldn’t be. But it had to be true.

  Why hadn’t she told him?

  He was afraid his mouth gaped, but he couldn’t find the words for all the questions swirling in his brain. If he’d known, he’d have been there every way he could. The first flight to her hemisphere, he’d have been on it. Except he couldn’t have afforded the airfare, and his mother couldn’t have been left alone. Whatever he’d chosen, he’d have abandoned someone he loved. What could he have done?

  The only answer he came up with stung: nothing.

  Even Edith and Dinah hadn’t known. Edith’s exclamation had proved that. Why had Minnie kept it to herself? Then it dawned on him: they hadn’t been married, and she’d been in a foreign country. Alone. You didn’t announce stuff like that on the Internet back then like people did now. A baby out of wedlock—you prayed people didn’t count very carefully when the baby was born less than nine months after the wedding.

  The picture ripped him apart. If only he could have been there for her, with her. If only she’d told him. He wrapped his fingers around the ends of the armchair, feeling twenty-two agai
n, with the weight of the world so heavy on his chest he could barely breathe. Frantic for any answer to solve his problems, wishing for guidance and support. Minnie had shared his circle of the Inferno and he’d never noticed her. They’d needed each other’s strength and hadn’t been able to find it.

  Mark was right. All Gordon was doing was making Minnie miserable. He should go home. He’d accomplished what he’d come here to do; he’d provided a way for his mother to give back to the community. Hopefully that would atone for whatever sin ravaged her conscience.

  He reached for his suitcase, a beat-up old thing Ann had scoffed at. She hadn’t understood why he’d used the ugly one when he could afford a sturdier Samsonite. It was the one he’d planned to use on his travels with Minnie. They’d purchased them together, joking about all the stickers that would cover them one day. His case still showed the bare, worn brown leather. He wondered what had happened to Minnie’s.

  He snapped the locks and flipped the top of the suitcase open, tossing it onto the bed. Pulling a shirt out of the dresser, he balled it up and whipped it into the suitcase. The top slammed shut. He groaned, striding over to the bed. He grabbed the handle of the suitcase and yanked the lid up.

  A feminine fragrance wafted up from the case. That was strange. He didn’t remember it smelling flowery. Had Minnie put some potpourri in it or something? He examined the pockets, searching for the offending scented packet. Instead, he found a luggage tag and an envelope.

  The tag was Minnie’s. He’d grabbed the wrong suitcase. This one must be part of the room’s decoration. But the letter was addressed to him, at this address. So she hadn’t known they’d moved—no wonder he’d never received any letters. Why hadn’t that occurred to him before?

  The thin blue airmail paper had yellowed with age, and the ink had bled through in purple and pink splotches, as if the mail carrier had transported it in the rain. There were no canceled stamps or postmark, so the letter had never been delivered.

  He held it gingerly. It was sealed as if she’d meant to send it but had forgotten. Debate warred within him about reading the letter. She’d never mailed it, so she obviously didn’t intend him to read it. He stuffed it back in the side pocket and slammed the case closed.

  But he hadn’t even made it back to the dresser for another shirt before he returned to the case. He jammed his hands in his pockets, finding his Swiss army knife. He rubbed his thumbnail over the smooth side of the pocketknife, contemplating the letter. It had to be from her time in the Philippines. Why else would she have used an airmail envelope?

  He pulled the letter back out of the suitcase and stared at the address on the front. Minnie’s familiar looping handwriting scrolled his name. The letter was his, but it wasn’t. How often had he prayed to see it in his mailbox? He sliced open the sealed edges of the paper with his pocketknife and carefully unfolded the brittle paper.

  Minnie’s handwriting slanted across the page, but its normally graceful loops were pinched and sharp. In places the words smeared to illegibility. The date was seven months after she’d arrived in the Philippines. More than two months since the last letter he’d posted to her. The first paragraph was crossed out as if she had begun and changed her mind. The words obliterated with hash marks and scribbles, he couldn’t make out more than excited and home. The next paragraph was clearer, as if she’d taken a deep breath and picked up her pen again.

  The homecoming I was announcing at the beginning of this letter has been postponed indefinitely. Not because my supervisor is allowing me to stay, but because there is no longer a reason for him to send me home.

  Gordon scratched his forehead, wishing he understood her cryptic remarks. He paced across the room, the letter waving in his hand. Minnie had planned to come home early? He vaguely remembered some of the information from the Peace Corps saying they would send you home for any serious illness. Would Minnie have been sent home because she’d been pregnant?

  He double-checked the date. She would have come home before he’d married Ann. They could have been together. His heart sunk at another near miss in their relationship.

  The next line was smeared and he could only pick out a few words: rain, mud, and fall. Fall…his daughter-in-law had slipped on ice during her pregnancy, and had spent two days in the hospital warding off early labor. She’d spent the rest of her term on bed rest. They’d prayed and prayed for the safety of mother and child. A fall in a third world country, without modern medical help… It was all he needed for the picture to become clear.

  The village midwife helped me wrap him in a soft cloth, and we buried him beside a flowering tree.

  The paper trembled in his hand. He set it in his lap and covered his mouth, holding his jaw tight against the sobs that threatened. Minnie’s agony poured off the paper.

  I marked his grave with one of the stones we collected from the lake and inscribed John Mark on it.

  He could only imagine how alone she had been. He hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him most. And yet, she still included him in the placing of the rock. She’d acknowledged him, while he had left her out of his troubles. She had loved him through all of her pain, while he had pushed her away.

  Gordon sensed a pause in the writing as the handwriting changed. The already tremulous swirls grew more frantic and grief-stricken. The next line was marred with cross-outs and false starts.

  He’s gone.

  Gordon’s heart lodged in his throat like a lump of hot potato.

  I never thought I could miss something as tiny as the flutter against my stomach or the jabs of his little feet. My soul feels as empty as my belly. I’m not sure how I can go on with his death weighing on my heart.

  He gasped for air, forcing the oxygen into his lungs. It burned like cheap whiskey.

  I need you.

  No wonder she’d slammed the door in his face. He counted himself lucky she hadn’t backed over him with her Buick. And if he’d known, he would have deserved it. If he’d known, he would have never shown his face in Carterville again.

  Why hadn’t she told him?

  He rubbed his eyes and reread the letter, his fingers leaving creases in the thin paper where he gripped it. His emotions felt as raw as if he’d slashed at them with a razor. He carefully folded the blue paper and laid it on the dresser. The address caught his attention again. She’d addressed the letter to the Bower, as if she hadn’t known his family had moved. As if she’d been writing him here all along. Their mail had been forwarded. Why hadn’t he received any others? Had she not sent those letters either? He grabbed her suitcase and searched through all the stretchy pockets. No other envelopes.

  He and Minnie had to talk about this. He needed to know the whole story, and then he promised himself he would go home. He’d stop making everything worse. Once upon a time, his love for Minnie had meant he should have kept her close. Now it meant he had to let her go. He wasn’t worthy of her.

  He rapped softly on the door to Minnie’s apartment.

  She didn’t answer. He knocked again. Maybe she was busy with last minute plans. He scoured the house, but couldn’t find anyone who had seen her.

  She couldn’t escape him forever. He’d stick to her like caramel on an apple at the party tonight. Eventually he’d find a quiet moment.

  17

  Wendy bounded down the hallway about an hour before the benefit was to start. A wobbly red Mohawk wig flopped on top of her head, and giant three-toed orange slippers adorned her feet.

  “Hey G’ma! Look at me!” She jumped into the dining room where Minnie was stringing cottony cobwebs across the beverage table. The caterers would be arranging the appetizers shortly. Everything was on schedule, except Edith and Dinah were late returning from picking up Elvis at the bus station. She didn’t dare call them for fear of the questions they were surely dying to ask. She’d successfully avoided Gordon as well, although everyone had told her he was looking for her. She knew what he wanted, but she couldn’t talk about it now. Her brain
was spinning with the nine thousand party details needing to be addressed in the next hour. Her and Gordon’s problems had simmered for fifty years; they could bubble for five hours more.

  Wendy thrust her hands in the air as if she’d just completed a perfect ten gymnastics routine. “Ta-da!”

  Minnie wrapped her in a hug, careful not to disturb the plastic beak perched on Wendy’s nose. “Is this your Halloween costume?”

  “Minus an important part.” Leslie followed behind with a ball of reddish-brown feathers tucked under her arm. She wore jeans, a sweatshirt, a knitted scarf and tennis shoes. Minnie smiled to herself. She remembered how uncomfortable Leslie had been when she’d first arrived in town if she wore anything less than a full business suit. Mark had definitely discovered her softer side.

  “Oh, that’s right. Put it on, Mama!” Wendy held out her arms. Leslie wiggled Wendy’s arms into the costume, zipped the front, and affixed the Velcro closure, hiding the opening under a protrusion of crisp white feathers. Wendy flapped her arms, molting reddish down in a shower on the floor.

  Barbara appeared at the bottom of the stairs and held a walkie-talkie up to her mouth. Elmer’s voice crackled out. They had been testing their plans all afternoon. “We’re all set,” Barbara said into the radio. She gave Minnie a thumbs-up and headed back up the stairs. Minnie turned back to Wendy, who was performing a mixture of steps from her dance class.

  Leslie bent to sweep up the loose fuzz and tucked a ball of it into her pocket. “She’s going to be a plucked chicken by trick-or-treating tonight, if these feathers keep falling off.”

  “It’s so cute, though,” Minnie said, admiring Wendy’s pirouette. “You’ve really become quite crafty.”

  Leslie laughed. “Yeah. Five years ago, who’d have ever thought I’d sew a Halloween costume?”

  “Especially after that knitting project.” Minnie shook her head, remembering the project she’d given Leslie when she’d first arrived in Carterville. “I thought I chose an easy pattern.”