Accidental Happiness (12 page)

In the night, I dreamed of our house, the house all three of us had shared at one time or another. It was evening and I looked on from outside, deep in the yard, and I saw a girl on the front step. I was half aware that the scene was a dream, knew on some level that my bed and my life were far removed. But the house, the girl—Angel, I guessed—seemed so close to me.

I stepped forward in my yard. Lights came bright from the windows. The girl turned toward me and, when she did, I woke up, eyes wide, my heart beating fast as my head pressed back against the pillow. Elise, not Angel, had been the child in the dream, the girl standing on the stoop of my house. Fully awake, I felt my own weight, where seconds before I’d had none. Thin dampness rode up my neck and across my scalp.

Lying in bed, the image in the dream stayed with me. I could see Elise, her expression pleading, her face clear as she turned toward where I stood in the yard.

As I calmed, I allowed myself to embrace the vision, could picture it all clearly. My little sister, young still, as always, asking for what I couldn’t give. The house where I’d lived with my husband framed her small body. A glow had burned bright in the windows behind her, but I couldn’t discern the source. I couldn’t tell if the lights were from lamps, offering some level of welcome; or if they were something stronger, something dangerous. A fire burning out of control.

Reese was still in her berth, had been all morning. I slept poorly and woke up early, so I envied her rest. I poured myself another cup of coffee, careful not to clink the cup too loudly.

“Hey, Georgie. Want some food?” I scooped from a Tupperware bowl inside the sliding door cabinet behind the stove. Georgie’s food took up more space than mine in my limited kitchen storage. Then again, she ate at home more than I did.

“Here you go,” I said, putting her bowl on the floor.

I’d been up since seven, made coffee, walked the dog. I had no plans for the day, realized I was waiting, looking to my houseguest for inspiration. She seemed to do the one thing I’d been unable to do since Benjamin died. Make something happen. I’d lived out my days in a dream state. Reese had been the wake-up call of all time.

I picked up my cell phone—the only phone I’d had since I moved onto the boat—decided it was time to check in with the world. In the three days since Reese and Angel had shown up, I hadn’t turned my cell phone on. After the shooting, it had begun to ring and ring. The papers had my number from the freelance files, and reporters took advantage of the access to bug the hell out of me for information and quotes. So I turned it off. The police would show up at the dock if they needed me for any more questions. They were persistent little buggers, if nothing else. The reporters could go to hell.

I hadn’t even checked my voice mail in all that time. That kind of neglect would have seen me starving if I was counting on a real income from writing. But I had money. Money from the house, money from Ben’s policies—and I had a check that could buy me the world, with more to come in the months ahead. But all that money couldn’t buy me real answers with Reese; it couldn’t bring Ben back. Wealthy or not, no one could call me fortunate.

Out of more than a dozen messages on my voice mail, most were from reporters, one was from the pastor at Mt. Sinai, one was from Ben’s mother, and three were from the features editor at the local paper. At first I thought even he was pressing me for quotes on the shooting, but in fact he called about an article I’d promised him for the
Sunday Living
section. He was asking if, after everything that had happened, he could still count on a story from me about the culture of food inside the rural Southern church. Homecoming Sunday had been set at Mt. Sinai, but I couldn’t remember the exact date. I’d planned to build the story around that event. Geez, I’d forgotten about the article, hoped I hadn’t missed it altogether. I looked up the number for the church and dialed.

Ben and I had never been big on religion, but part of me wished we’d shared the place together. I wondered if Maxine had ever taken him there. I thought of the sanctuary. The candle smells, the oiled pews held distant familiarity, although the service was different in every way from the liturgical lullabies I’d suffered at my parents’ church in Virginia.

“Hello.” I recognized Martha Mincey’s voice. “Mt. Sinai.”

“Hi, Martha,” I said. “It’s Gina Melrose.”

“Oh, Gina.” The words, a near whisper. “How are you, hon?” Pity? Concern? Probably a little of both. She’d read the paper. Everybody had read the paper.

“I’m fine. I really am. The girl has her arm in a sling, but everything’s going to be okay.”

Martha was in her fifties and divorced. Plump and eager, her natural instincts were that of a mother always ready to make the world right.

“It sounded so awful, what you went through. Preacher Hanes left you a message and we held a prayer vigil for you the day after it happened.”

“I appreciate that, Martha,” I said, forcing enthusiasm into the words. Truth was, the
prayer vigil
thing freaked me out a little bit. “Like I said, everything turned out okay. The little girl is fine. I’m fine.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.” She
was
glad. That remained the amazing part. The whole church was like that. They could make themselves
care
about people they hardly knew.

“Listen, Martha.” I moved on quickly to the topic at hand. “I need to find out something. Have I missed Homecoming?”

“No, sweetie. It’s this weekend.”

“That’s great. That’ll be perfect,” I said. “Remember that story I told you about? The one the paper wanted on food and churches?”

“I do remember, now that you mention it.” She sounded like Martha again, perky and ready to help.

“Well, my editor needs the story from me next week. Did the preacher say it was okay?”

“Oh sure, hon. The more people who know about our little congregation here, the better. Just come on Sunday and bring that photographer you mentioned and we’ll do the rest.”

“Thanks, Martha.”

I hung up the phone, heard a clamor outside in the cockpit that rattled the boat. Georgie growled, but didn’t bother mounting a full-scale bark. I made note again of the bullet-sized hole in the companionway canvas. A constant reminder of how life had gone askew. After a second, Angel pulled back the canvas and stuck her head in. Her face appeared but her body remained hidden by the blue cloth, giving the appearance of a floating, disembodied Oz.

“Lane’s making eggs and country ham,” she announced. “She says y’all come on over for breakfast.”

“What’re you doing?” Reese cracked open the door that separated her sleeping quarters from the main cabin. She leaned around to look at Angel, eyes blinking against the sun that came streaming into the cabin.

“Breakfast,” Angel said again. “At Lane’s house. Eggs, ham, grits . . . All the stuff you like.”

Then Angel disappeared. I heard her turn on her heel, sneakers squeaking against the fiberglass deck.

“Eggs,” Reese said, making her way back into the main cabin. “Now that’s what I had in mind after a bout of late-night drinking.”

“Are you hung over?” I asked.

“Aren’t you? You had me two-to-one on the cognac.”

I shrugged it off, shook my head; tried to remember how many times I refilled my glass.

“Where’s the bathroom again?” she asked.

“The boat’s not that big, Reese. The head’s over near my berth.”

“The
head,
right.” She pointed herself in the right direction. “Benjamin used to make me use that nautical language crap. I hated it then too.”

Lane’s story about Angel and her trip to the island rang in my thoughts. Reese hadn’t been the one to take the girl to the island. She’d said the night before that she didn’t sail, didn’t even like it. In truth, the woman could barely make it from one end of the cabin to the other without losing her balance. Maybe Lane was right, Angel had known about the place somehow, decided to play make-believe. I should have just asked her about it, but there were too many issues on the table as it was. As hard as it was to accept, Ben had probably taken Reese to the island too. Angel could have heard stories from her mother.

“Where’s my towel?” Reese asked, finally locating it deep in her berth.

She shuffled off toward the front of the cabin, disappeared inside the coffin-sized bathroom that rivaled the facilities on a commercial airplane. I was still hearing the bump-and-swear routine of Reese’s morning washup as I left to go across the lawn to Lane’s.

9

Reese

C
amping on Benjamin’s old boat with his wife wasn’t going to last. Reese sat back on the toilet so that she could manage to open the door and get out of the bathroom—no, the fucking
head,
she corrected herself. Space on the boat was tight to begin with, and when you crammed in all of the questions Gina had, there was no room left to breathe. She had to make a new plan. How the hell could she make this come out all right without Benjamin?

She looked around for her sandals and, when she lost patience with the search, found a pair of Gina’s flip-flops and headed out for Lane’s house.

She left the dog on the boat, and the air-conditioning on, which she hoped was okay. If not, Gina could drag her ass back and put everything in order the way she wanted it.

“Come on in,” Lane said.

The outside of Lane’s house looked like a dwelling out of a children’s book. Flower beds and a slate stone walkway leading to a porch with a mango-colored glider and matching chairs. The dwarves from Snow White couldn’t have managed a more charming existence. Though small by house standards, it was a mansion compared to the boat—and the neatness alone made it seem palatial. The nicest part was that it looked like a home. A mat at the front door, a real lamp on the table in the corner.

“How long have you lived here?” Reese asked as she settled on the couch with a cup of coffee. Gina stood at the counter in the kitchen, looking busy. Angel was nowhere to be seen.

“Harlan and I owned it for years. We’d come out on weekends. He kept a boat a little smaller than Gina’s, but I sold that. After he died, my son and his wife moved into our house in Sumter and I moved out here. We’d always planned to retire here anyway.”

“It’s nice,” Reese said. Nice summed up the entire feel of the place. Something about it made tears come to her eyes. She couldn’t imagine what brought on such a reaction. It certainly wasn’t from recollecting any prior domestic experiences of her own. After her mother left, her father barely managed anything resembling a home. He worked, went to endless church meetings, and came home when he had nowhere else to go. The idea that he was a deacon, a church elder, meant far more to him than the notion that he was a father.

“You want some juice, hon, or you can join Gina with a Bloody Mary?” Lane called over to her after joining Gina in the kitchen.

“I’m fine with coffee for now,” she said, sitting down on the couch. “Can I help with anything?”

“Just stay put,” Lane said. “We’re almost ready to eat.”

The small dinette table took up one corner of the kitchen. It looked like something in a cheery family-style restaurant, a bright red top with matching diner chairs around four sides. Lane had arranged a country breakfast. Food was laid out along a yellow-patterned runner, with place settings on either side. Plates of biscuits, grits, potatoes, and ham ran the length of the table. Everything but the eggs, and Lane moved to the stove to finish those.

“How do you like your eggs?” Lane asked.

“Cooked.” The notion of eggs suddenly seemed like heaven to Reese in spite of her tender stomach. “I like them any way they’re served.”

The coffee tasted fresh. Reese felt overwhelmed at being cared for, pampered. It occurred to her that Angel had no notion of this kind of life. Until now, anyway. No wonder the child adored Lane. Compared to their vagabond existence, this had to be a kid’s dream. As if to illustrate her thoughts, Angel came into the room from the back of the house.

“Doesn’t this look great?” she said, eyes eager, watching Reese.

Reese felt compelled to respond with appropriate enthusiasm. This was important to Angel, and Reese understood the urgency to embrace Lane, to let Angel know it was okay to love her. Otherwise, the girl might feel that her mother was jealous. Was she? Reese wondered. The last time—the only time—she’d begun to seriously share Angel’s affections, she’d taken the girl and run away. For Angel’s sake, for Benjamin’s sake, she regretted that now.

“It looks fantastic!” she said, with enough exaggeration in her tone to make herself wince. No one else seemed to notice. Angel didn’t notice, and she usually tuned in to every false note her mother played.

“It’s ready,” Lane announced, and Reese steered Angel toward the kitchen table, where Gina already sat with the Bloody Mary in her hand.

“Hair of the dog?” Reese asked.

“I’m not the one feeling hung over,” Gina answered. She wasn’t smiling.

The glare between them, a virtual standoff, was interrupted by Lane’s arrival at the table with an oversized pan. Reese knew she had to make more of an effort with Gina, but they got to each other, and it was hard to get past the knee-jerk responses.

“This is hot,” Lane said, holding the heavy skillet a safe distance from her body. She waited as everyone settled into their seats. “Don’t let me brush against you while I’m doing this.” She leaned over, portioned the steaming eggs onto each plate.

Gina sat closest to the window, across the table from the child. She didn’t seem to know what to do with Angel, kept her distance, kept quiet. Reese knew she should have expected as much after the little bit Ben told her about Gina’s views on children. Then, once you took into account the way she and Angel had arrived . . . But Reese wanted it to be different. She wanted everything to fall into place. Suddenly, more than ever, all her questions about Gina were critical to the situation, and she didn’t know any of the answers.

“I didn’t realize I was so hungry,” Gina said, digging into her eggs. “My appetite’s been spotty for months now. This tastes really good.”

Angel helped herself to more grits. Her bum arm didn’t slow down her efforts in the least.

“I’m glad,” Lane said. “We all deserve a break from the last few days. That’s what I think anyway.”

The mood eased as the food disappeared. The air in the house stayed warm, even with the AC on high. Too many bodies with the addition of a hot stove made the space toasty. Despite all that, everything felt right, Reese realized. She reasoned it to be brief; but still, allowed for some small measure of hope for the first time since her arrival.

Even Gina seemed more relaxed. She cupped her hands around a mug of coffee, indulged in an easy smile, an occurrence that Reese had deemed rare. It seemed to be either laughter or tears with Ben’s strange wife—like Billy Joel said, sadness or euphoria—and little in between.

“I’m doing a story on food in churches,” Gina was telling Lane.

“What do you mean?” Lane asked. “Food pantries, like for the homeless?”

“No, not that.” Gina sipped her coffee. “For the lifestyle section. The culture of food in rural churches, the covered-dish supper kind of thing. The role food plays in pulling religious communities together. I’m going over to the Homecoming at Mt. Sinai this weekend. Want to come?”

Her question seemed to be directed at the table in general, and Reese piped in just in case.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I haven’t been to church since my crazy father made me march down the aisle in front of some TV preacher so I could be ‘healed’ when I was fourteen.”

The room went silent, even Angel looked stunned, and Reese found herself at the blunt end of the conversation—again.

“What was wrong with you?” Gina asked finally.

“Best I could tell, he thought an interest in boys was a disease.” She tried to sound light. “I suppose it all fell under the general umbrella of ‘the sickness of sin.’ I really don’t know what he was thinking.”

She managed to laugh as she talked about it, but regretted bringing it up. Why had she? The televised revival. The dynamic preacher with his big paws flat against her head. How his robe smelled like detergent and cigarettes. She left out the part about how oddly compelling he was. How he’d evoked strange tugs of mind and muscle that drew her in, but at the same time made her want to run from the place, find some air. And she did run before the night was out. It seemed she’d been running ever since.

“You should have seen it,” she said, forcing a casual tone. A simple anecdote. Why had she begun this story? It was too late to go back, so she went on with it. “The people who go to those things are bizarre.”

She used funny voices as she described the “healing” chants, the followers laid out like beached whales all along the altar. But she didn’t tell them everything that had happened. She didn’t tell them that, in spite of her revulsion and her fear, she had felt something—something strange and outside herself. Instead, she acted as if she’d been amused all along by the preacher’s gibberish words.

She especially didn’t tell them about the rest of it. The most frightening parts that she had never told anyone. Or about the following Monday at school, the day after the show aired, when she was just about the only one not amused by everything that happened. She didn’t share with them how on that day, she’d been the only one
not
laughing.

Gina maintained a weak smile, but Lane looked troubled. “God, how awful!” she said.

You don’t know the half of it,
Reese thought.

Angel just stared, eyes wide, with no expression defining her face. Reese realized she had broken her own rule. She’d opened up, if only a little, let down her guard when she hadn’t intended to. Maybe that surprised Angel more than the story itself. She’d have to be more careful.

“So anyway,” Reese finished. “Count me out of your research for this assignment. I don’t do churches.” Then she added. “Mt. Sinai. Isn’t that the little church you pass on the way to Ben’s old family cottage on Sullivan’s Island?”

She took a biscuit, tried to look unbothered by the turn the conversation had taken toward religion. Not her best topic.

“That’s the one,” Gina told her. “Ben’s buried out there, and that’s where we had the funeral. Since we didn’t have a church of our own, and I wanted him to be close by, Maxine said she’d like to have him there, near the cottage.”

“Is she still hanging on to that place?” The small house was on the water. Reese remembered going there a few times with Ben. In particular, one unpleasant weekend with Maxine, Ben’s mother, in tow.

“Yeah,” Gina said, picking up another piece of bacon. “She rents it out in season. The realty company manages the maintenance, so it’s not much trouble for her. Besides, as an investment, it’s better than the market right now. Land value is on the upswing. She’s able to rent it through the summer. Sometimes into the fall.”

“Do you ever go out there?” Reese asked.

“I haven’t been there in a while,” Gina said. “We had Thanksgiving there the first year Ben and I were married, went back a few times after that, but . . .” She stopped.

Reese wondered what memories the cottage evoked for Gina. She thought of all Gina’s memories with Ben, wondered if they were as cluttered and conflicted as her own. She doubted it. Funny, until she met Ben’s new wife, she’d somehow seen him frozen in time, the same person she’d left standing in the yard the night she left. Even knowing about Gina, Ben’s life beyond her leaving had never truly existed for her until the last couple of days. Less than forty-eight hours had brought so many things into bright relief.

“Anyway,” Gina said, after no one jumped in to change the topic. “I think she keeps it for sentimental reasons more than anything else. They went there a lot when Ben was little. So, about Homecoming. Anybody want to tag along with me? How ’bout you, Lane?”

“I would,” Lane said, pouring herself another cup of coffee. “But I’m on Altar Guild this Sunday, so I have to show up at my own church or there’ll be no proper communion.”

Lane stood up and began clearing plates. Reese was disappointed the meal had to end.

“I’ll go.” Angel spoke for the first time since Reese’s holy-roller confessional.

“I’m sorry?” Gina was clearly at a loss.

“I want to go to church with you.” Angel seemed clear on her intention to tag along.

Reese wondered what she should do. Should she say no? The last thing she wanted was for Angel to get spooked by some speaking-in-tongues crowd the way she was as a kid. On the other hand, Gina hadn’t warmed up that much to Angel. An outing together might soften things up a little between them, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“I think that would be a lovely thing for the two of you to do together.” Lane spoke before Reese had a chance.

Reese weighed the situation again in her mind, allowed herself to trust the older woman’s instincts when it came to Angel.
And
her instincts when it came to Gina, for that matter.

“It’s fine with me, I guess,” Reese said.

Gina looked cornered. She could have put a stop to it, but it would have been awkward, almost insulting. It seemed to Reese that the decision had been made.

“Okay,” Gina said finally, looking anything but okay. “But it probably won’t be the most interesting outing for a child. I mean, I’m going to be nosing around, getting quotes for the story. I won’t be a lot of company for you.”

“That’s all right,” Angel said, her voice sure and easy. “I’ll stay out of your way.”

The way she said it, the adult tone she took, made Reese smile. Angel had a way of taking adults back to square one.