But what was even more arresting than the girls’ resemblance to each other was their resemblance to me.
“Who are they?” I asked my mother, my gaze fixed on the portrait.
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen this painting before. It must always have been in the attic because to my knowledge it has never hung anywhere downstairs. I just . . .” Her fingertips gingerly pressed against her lips.
“I know. They look like me. And you, if you look at the hairline of the taller girl; she’s got a widow’s peak just like yours. So they must be ancestors, right?”
She nodded. “But not your grandmother, she was born in 1900. Maybe her mother. Although I was pretty sure my grandmother was an only child.”
I knelt in front of the portrait, hoping to see it better. Squinting, and wishing I could forget vanity long enough to actually throw my glasses into my purse, I peered closely at the two girls, seeing something new this time, something that seemed to catch the light and nestle into the lacy fabric of the taller girl’s blouse. Leaning closer, I saw a small golden locket in the shape of a heart. Moving forward so that my nose was almost pressed to the canvas, I noticed the letter
M
engraved in the gold.
My mother saw what I was looking at and shifted the flashlight over to the shorter girl. “She’s wearing one, too.” With a look of reproach, she handed me the flashlight before opening her purse and pulling out a pair of stylish reading glasses. After sliding them on, she bent slightly forward. “This one has an
R
on it.” She stepped back, her brow furrowed. “That’s really odd,” she said. “My grandmother’s name was Rose, but I’m positive she didn’t have a sister—or any sibling, for that matter. I would say that these girls aren’t members of the family at all except for the uncanny resemblance to you.”
“Uncanny is one way to describe it,” I said, studying the portrait again. My scrutiny moved from the girls to the scene behind them, and again I felt the odd sensation of thinking I should know what I was looking at, but I had no clue. They were standing in the shade of a huge oak tree situated on a rise of land, a large body of water glittering behind them, a stretch of sandy beach just visible in the corner of the portrait. In the distant background, a white antebellum mansion squatted in the center of a row of oaks.
“Do you recognize the house?” I asked, turning to my mother.
Her face had paled, and she appeared as gray and transparent as a photo negative in the dim attic light. “No. But the ocean . . .”
She didn’t say any more because she didn’t have to. I’d been remembering the sunken sailboat, too—and the human remains found on board. And the trail of salt in the kitchen.
“I know. I thought the same thing. But what’s odd is that . . .”
I felt my mother quietly watching me.
I continued. “Yesterday a friend of Jack’s, Rebecca Edgerton, told me she’d had a dream about this attic, and how if I looked I’d find a portrait or picture of some kind of someone who resembles me.”
“Really?” She cocked an elegant brow. “So this reporter is an acquaintance of Jack’s. How interesting. She keeps leaving me messages, you know.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “And she’s just a—friend?”
I frowned, wondering why she’d be more concerned about the relationship between Jack and Rebecca than Rebecca’s psychic abilities. Of course, to us acknowledging psychic abilities would be on par with the excitement generated by the purchase of a new toothbrush in another household.
“Old friends. They used to date before Rebecca introduced Jack to her friend Emily. What’s so weird is how much Rebecca and Emily resemble each other. And I get the feeling that Jack might be attracted to her because of it.”
“Ah, yes. Emily, the fiancée. Poor girl. Jack’s mother told me how Emily jilted Jack before the wedding without telling him she was sick.” She shook her head. “But for Jack to find out later, after she’d died. That’s the most tragic part of all.” She fixed me with a piercing gaze. “No wonder he’s attracted to Rebecca now.” She patted my arm. “But don’t worry, Mellie. I’m sure what he’s after from Rebecca is more of a closure with Emily than any other kind of relationship. He never had his chance to say good-bye, and Rebecca’s offering the chance to him now. Like a surrogate of sorts.”
I pulled away. “I really couldn’t care less, Mother. If you knew me at all, you’d realize that Jack and I are completely wrong for each other. We just don’t have that kind of relationship, if you even want to call it that. It’s more work related than anything and when he finishes his book and doesn’t need to be around my house so much for his research anymore, I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
Ignoring her dubious expression, I grabbed the frame with both hands. “If you could open the door for me, I’d like to bring this downstairs to examine it in better light. And I’d like Jack to take a look at it, too. He might recognize the setting.”
Smiling to herself, my mother took one last look around the attic before heading toward the door. As I walked by with the painting, she said, “Isn’t Jack living with you? You could just bring it home.”
I set the painting down, my arms tired. “Firstly, he’s not living with me. He’s staying with me temporarily, in a guest room, because he’s under the false impression that I need him for protection. Secondly, this painting doesn’t belong to you yet and removing it from the house would be considered stealing.”
“I guess you have a point,” she said closing the attic door, then following me down the hall. “But what if the current owners see the painting and decide to keep it?”
We both looked around at the orange shag carpeting and vinyl pin-wheel mobiles that hung suspended from the hallway ceiling light fixtures. “They won’t,” we said simultaneously and continued toward the front stairs.
We were halfway down when I remembered something I’d wanted to ask her. I stopped and faced her, balancing the frame on the step behind me. “Earlier, when you came in, you saw the soldier, too, didn’t you?”
I watched her hesitate as something flickered behind her eyes, like a ghost flitting across the room. “Yes,” she admitted as she resumed her descent, moving in front of me so I couldn’t see her face or read her eyes, and I knew she’d done it on purpose. “I saw him.”
I followed her into the foyer, resting the painting against the newel post. “I remember him from when Grandmother lived here.”
“Yes. I know.” She made a fuss of putting on her coat and buttoning it with her gloved fingers. “He was here when I was a girl, too.”
I looked at her with surprise. “You never told me.” A flash of anger seared through me as it occurred to me that there was so much more we didn’t know about each other. And all because she simply hadn’t bothered to be there.
“No. I didn’t,” she said, her voice soft. She lifted her hand to touch my arm but withdrew it, knowing I’d jerk away again. “I suppose there are many things I never told you, and I’m sorry. But maybe . . .” She gave me a tentative smile. “Maybe we’ll have a chance now that I’m back to talk about things. To get to know each other better.”
My phone rang, which stopped me from telling her that she had long ago missed her chance at sharing any part of my life. She was simply too late. I felt the prick of tears behind my eyes, and I turned my back on her to answer the phone, ashamed to let her see me cry.
“I have to get this,” I said, flipping open my phone.
She waited for a moment and when I didn’t turn around, she said, “I’ll go now. Let me know the details on the closing.”
I nodded and waited for the sound of the door latching behind me, realizing too late that I hadn’t thought to ask her why the soldier had appeared so solid to me for the first time, and why I thought it might have had something to do with my mother’s arrival.
I closed my phone without checking to see who it was and let my gaze return to the portrait—and found myself staring back at two sets of hazel eyes that were so remarkably similar to each other’s and to mine, the subtle differences in shading now apparent in the brighter light. I stepped closer, my own eyes widening as I realized that the taller girl’s eyes were slightly tilted up at the corners, a near mirror image of my own.
A small sound began in the eaves of the old house, racing through the plaster and lumber of the ancient frame, the sound a tiny wail at first and then erupting into a baby’s helpless cries. I’d heard it before as a young girl, but until I’d spoken with Rebecca, its origins had been as elusive to me as those of my soldier.
I swallowed thickly and turned to the door, recalling one more thing I hadn’t known about my mother, then let myself out.
I returned home from the closing on the Legare Street property completely exhausted. The paperwork had been straightforward—I prided myself on having everything organized and laid out so that there was no wasted time—but the personal vibes in the room were both intrusive and uncomfortable. Everyone at the table—except for me—seemed to think a daughter acting as her mother’s Realtor was cute and indicated a close bond. Smiling through clenched teeth for an hour turned out to be more exhausting than running a marathon.
I dropped everything in the foyer, not having the energy to bring my stuff all the way inside, then kicked off my shoes, scattering them across the marble tiled floor. “Hello,” I called, hearing voices from another part of the house.
“Yo, Melanie! We’re in here.”
I grinned at hearing Chad Arasi’s voice and followed the sound to the dining room. He was the male equivalent of Sophie’s bohemian persona, right down to the braid he wore at the back of his head and the environmentally savvy bicycle he used for transportation to and from his job as a professor of music at the College of Charleston. He used words like “dude” and “awesome” and didn’t seem to mind Sophie’s fashion choices, which was one of the main reasons why I’d been pushing them together since Chad had first moved to Charleston from California and hired me as his Realtor earlier that year.
He now lived with Sophie—platonically—because according to Sophie their zodiac signs would be incompatible in a romantic relationship. That’s what she said anyway, but I was pretty sure it had more to do with her independent nature—and her unwillingness to view a romantic relationship as anything but a power struggle. Staring at Sophie and Chad—now in matching Birkenstock sandals and having a lively conversation about the merits of Federal versus Georgian architectural styles—I made a note to redouble my efforts to get them together.
They were standing in the large doorway between the living and dining rooms with the warped pocket doors that had been removed now lying supine on two separate workbenches that had been assembled in the emptied dining room.
“It’s the Melster,” Chad said, approaching before kissing me on both cheeks. “We were wondering if you’d be bruised and bloodied after the closing.” He made a big show of checking me out for injuries. “And seeing you whole makes us wonder if your mother’s okay.”
I smirked. “Very funny. It was pretty—intense. But it’s over. And hopefully, after we get her house ‘cleansed,’ I shouldn’t have to run into her at all.” I ignored their shared glance and moved to where the doors lay patiently waiting. “How’s it going?”
Chad shook his head. “Too early to tell, really. I’m going to try to find some matching hardwood to make a wedge for both doors to see if that’ll work. Maybe shim the bottoms, too. The tracks and all the hardware need to be replaced, which isn’t going to be cheap.” He smiled brightly. “But Sophie and I agree that it’ll look beautiful when we’re all done.”
I examined the offending doors for a moment. “Or maybe we could just close up the opening and forget it was ever here.”
Both Sophie and Chad looked at me with identical expressions of horror and it was hard not to laugh. “Fine, fine. Do what needs to be done.” I sighed.The discovery in the house of a hidden cache of diamonds had certainly helped finance the restoration, but sometimes I began to believe that the entire contents of Fort Knox wouldn’t be sufficient to fund the job. I envisioned myself working at selling houses well into my nineties just to support myself and this house. I occasionally even had the odd thought that I actually enjoyed restoring the house, but usually only before I received one of the receipts Sophie gave me for materials or labor from the horde of workmen she commissioned for various jobs. Then my thoughts tended to stray more to a flaming match and some kind of accelerant.
I looked around, realizing I hadn’t heard the dog barking when I came in. “Where’s General Lee?”
Sophie watched my face carefully. “Jack and Rebecca took him for a walk.”
“Who?” I wasn’t sure if I was more surprised by the fact that Rebecca was walking my dog or that Chad and Sophie would be on a first-name basis with her already.
Chad explained. “The little guy has been locked up in the kitchen all afternoon because Sophie’s been here and I guess they felt he could use the exercise.”
“They?” I said, still not able to wrap my mind around the fact that Jack and Rebecca might be out walking
my
dog.
Chad tightened his braid. “Well, it was just Jack at first but when he went to leave, Rebecca came, so she went with him.”
I nodded, slightly mollified. “What else is going on?” I asked hesitantly, afraid of Sophie’s answer. Her answers always managed to cost me at least a thousand dollars and as many hours in sweat equity.
Again I noticed an exchange of glances. Sophie smiled her brightest smile, the one that reminded me of a nurse’s right after she tells you it won’t hurt a bit but before she jabs the large needle into your arm.
“It’s time to talk about redoing the floors. I know I mentioned to you that we could do it room by room to cause you the least amount of inconvenience. But after thinking about it and discussing it with Chad, we realized that doing it that way would probably take two to three times longer and it would be best to just do them all at once.”
I looked at them both, waiting for the big needle jab. “Okay. That sounds fine. Just let me know when and I’ll take a couple of days off from work to help.”
Again, the shared glance and I inadvertently flinched, knowing that the needle was poised and ready.
Chad intervened. “That’s totally cool that you can help. Soph here wants everything done by hand so it will take as many people as we can get. But it’s, um, going to take more than a couple of days.”
“Like three or four?” I suggested helpfully.
“Um, not exactly. We’re thinking maybe closer to a month. Or more. It’s a big job. We’ll have to remove all the existing furniture that’s not already in storage because of the mess from the sanding. And then there’ll be a couple of coats of stain on top of that and then the wax. The smell can be pretty noxious. . . .” His voice trailed off.
I’d stopped listening after hearing the word “month.” “You’re saying I need to move out of my house for an entire month, or maybe more.”
They both nodded, uncannily resembling matching bobbleheads. “Bingo,” they said in unison. Looking at each other, they both said, “Jinx!” and started to laugh.
I was spared from throwing up by the voice behind me. “You can stay with me.”
Recognizing Jack’s voice, I turned around to see him and Rebecca, with General Lee in her arms. I noticed how he didn’t squirm to be released when he saw me.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. I’ll be moving into my house in a week or so. Since I need Melanie’s help with some of the renovations, it would make sense for her to just move into her old room.”
I hadn’t noticed my mother at first; she must have come in right after Jack and Rebecca but early enough to hear Jack’s offer.
“I don’t . . .” I started.
Sophie practically leapt with enthusiasm. “That’s a great idea! That way you’ll be on hand to assist me and your mother with all the—work that needs to be done on the house.”
I knew her pause before the word “work” was intentional, and I appreciated her caution in front of Rebecca. I frowned, knowing that what she said made sense. But I was more than leery about moving into that house—and not just because my mother would be living there, too.
“I really don’t think . . .” Again I was interrupted, but this time it was by Jack.
“She’s right. It makes perfect sense. You’d be close enough to home to check on the progress here, plus you’d be on-site to help your mother with all the, um, work on her house.”
Appalled, I searched for my voice and any words strong enough to dissuade the mob. “I don’t want to impose on my mother. A hotel would be fine. Really.”
I felt four sets of accusatory eyes on me. Five, if you included General Lee.
“You wouldn’t be imposing, Mellie.You’d be helping me.” My mother schooled her face into an appropriately groveling yet not-too-pathetic expression. “I’m not as young as I used to be, you know, and moving all of my belongings from a different state plus all the upheaval of a renovation just might do me in. And,” she added with a note of triumph, “it would give us time to plan your fortieth-birthday party.”
Rebecca’s eyes widened. “I had no idea you were that old.” Her long lashes fluttered as her cheeks reddened. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant you don’t look that old.” She closed her eyes, her face reddening further, but she remained silent, unwilling or unable to dig a deeper hole.
Seeing a chance to change the subject, I said, “Mother, I don’t believe you’ve met Rebecca Edgerton. She’s writing a story about you for the
Post & Courier
. Rebecca, this is my mother, Ginnette Prioleau.”
My mother held out her gloved hand, her brow raised in true diva fashion. “Oh, yes. I believe we spoke briefly once. And you’ve left several messages for me since. How nice to meet you in person.” She didn’t apologize for not returning the messages.
“Likewise,” said Rebecca, gingerly taking the proffered hand and looking miserable, considering she’d somehow orchestrated meeting her prey in person.
My mother turned back to me. “Melanie may be turning forty, but she just keeps getting more and more beautiful each year, doesn’t she, Jack?” She beamed at Jack.
“Just like the finish on an antique piece of furniture,” he said, grinning. “More lovely, and with a little bit of shine.”
I scowled at him, not liking being compared to an armoire, and faced my mother. If the comment had come from anybody else besides my mother, I would have hugged her for it. Instead I looked away, but felt all eyes staring at me—waiting for an answer—and I began to feel like someone who’d just told a little kid the truth about Santa Claus.
Jack’s arm went around my shoulder and he bent close to my ear, his breath racing like little pinpricks up my bare neck. “Come on, Mellie. It’s just for a short time. And I’ll be there to rescue you if you need me.”
My gaze traveled from my mother to Jack and then back again. Mrs. Trenholm had once told me she thought Jack could charm the blue out of the sky. I wasn’t sure if she’d been complimenting her son or warning me. Either way, I believed she was right. Jack Trenholm had an alarming way of getting me to do things I didn’t want to do.
I let out a slow breath through clenched teeth. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever. I guess I can survive anything for a month.”
Sophie shifted uncomfortably in her Birkenstocks and exchanged a surreptitious glance with Chad. “Um, a month is only a guesstimate. There’s always the possibility it could take longer. For instance, if it rains a lot the high humidity will delay the drying of the floors between layers of stain and sealant. That’s totally out of our control, of course, but it could add to the total time.”
“You can stay as long as you need, Mellie. My house is always open to you.” My mother smiled gently and I looked away.
I had a sudden vision of me in a barrel heading toward a large waterfall, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I was spared a response by a small squeak from General Lee, and then he came racing in to me from the foyer. I picked him up, checking his small body to make sure he was intact, then walked out of the room toward the foyer where Rebecca had wandered while I’d been strong-armed into moving in with my mother.
She was staring at the portrait of the two girls. I’d brought it to my house for temporary safekeeping while the previous occupants of the Legare Street house moved their belongings. It was leaning against the recently replastered wall of the foyer, and more than once I’d wanted to face it toward the wall to avoid the following gaze of the painting’s subjects.
Rebecca looked up as we approached. “Sorry. I must have squeezed him too tightly. It’s just . . .” She indicated the painting. “It’s—it’s just like what I remembered from my dream.”
“What is it?” Jack walked closer and put a hand on her arm, and I was annoyed at myself for letting that little bit of contact between them bother me.
Keeping the dog in my arms as a sort of screen between me and the painting, I stepped closer and turned to Jack. “I didn’t have a chance to show you what my mother and I found in the attic in the Legare Street house. We don’t know who the girls are, but the setting seems familiar and I wanted to see if you recognized either the subjects or the setting.”
He shook his head slowly, studying the painting closely. “I definitely see a family resemblance. But then again . . .” He looked up at me and narrowed his eyes and was silent for a moment. “I’m not so sure.”
“Look,” said Rebecca, pointing to the hidden locket on the taller girl’s chest. Her index finger shook and she quickly folded it into her fist as if she didn’t want anybody to see.
“They each have one,” I said, regarding her closely. “Do you see anything you recognize? Maybe the house?”
It took her a moment to answer. “No. Not at all. It’s just that it’s so—striking.” She squatted to get a better look just as I’d done before, but I doubted it was because her eyesight was deteriorating with age. I guessed that she was about five years younger than I was, and I couldn’t help but look down at her hair part to see if she had any grays yet. She didn’t.
Jack held up his cell phone and snapped a picture. “I’m going to show this to Yvonne Craig at the historical society. I don’t recognize anything in this painting but she might.”
I remembered meeting Yvonne when Jack and I had been researching part of my Tradd Street house’s past. I’ll admit to being a little jealous of her because of the fondness in Jack’s voice whenever he said her name and the inordinate amount of time he seemed to spend with her. It wasn’t until I’d met her—complete with support hose and walker—that I realized Jack had been leading me on purposely and that Ms. Craig was old enough to be his grandmother.
“Can I go with you?” Rebecca asked, her blue eyes wide.