The Belles of Desire, Mississippi (The Ghosts of Summerleigh Book 1) Page 8

  “Yes, sir. I made the rice and gravy.”

  His jaw popped again. “I’m going up to see your sister. I’ll be back for that delicious meal. Thank you, Harper.” I loved how Daddy always treated me like a grown-up. Always. Even when I was really little, he talked to me like I was big. And now I was.

  I heard Daddy’s footsteps on the stairs as he went up to see Jeopardy. I couldn’t help but be nosy. I snuck to the bottom of the stairs and waited to see what kind of welcome he got. She’d been so moody lately, so angry at me. Maybe now that our father was home, she’d feel better about Momma, Addison and Loxley. And me.

  My two little sisters caught me spying, but they didn’t tell on me. They waited too. We heard Jeopardy crying her heart out. Loxley smiled up at me, her blue eyes moist, her lips quivering. “Daddy’s home now, Harper.”

  “Yes, he is. Why don’t you two help me get his supper ready? Daddy needs food and lots of it. He’s been fighting the enemy, and he’s probably really hungry.”

  “I’ll help!” Loxley ran into the kitchen first and began to set the table. Addison arranged a jar full of wildflowers in front of his plate. I’d seen her out picking them earlier. It had been nice to see her out of doors, even though I worried that she’d get sick afterward. So far, so good. I smiled when I noticed she had a healthy pink glow in her cheeks. She smiled back. I poured a tiny amount of water in the saucepan to heat up the rice and poured the gravy into a smaller pan. There were also fresh peaches, so Addison and I peeled some and tossed them with sugar and cinnamon for Daddy’s dessert. We were beginning to wonder if he’d ever come downstairs when we heard Momma’s Master DeLuxe pull into the drive. Addison’s eyes widened, and Loxley sat quietly in her chair as the back door opened. Momma walked in with shopping bags in her arms. She deposited the wet paper bags on the counter and peeled off her rain hat and coat. It was then that she noticed Daddy’s hat on the table. She didn’t say a word, but the smile vanished from her face as she hung up her coat on one of the hooks behind the door. She must have forgotten all about Daddy’s homecoming.

  “Loxley, go wash your face. Addison, how are you feeling, dear? Your cheeks are so pink.” She laid the back of her hand on Addison’s forehead and clucked once. “I hope that’s not a fever you have coming on.” Addison sniffed in response and touched her own forehead. “Harper, cat got your tongue?”

  “Girls, go upstairs.” Daddy was in the doorway now. I flicked off the burners and glanced at Momma, and in that moment she knew. She knew I’d betrayed her and told Daddy her secret. She knew I’d told Daddy everything. And what had Jeopardy told him? “Now, Harper.”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered as I exited with my sisters. We did as he told us and scrambled up the stairs, at least as far as the landing. We could hear dishes breaking in the kitchen and furniture getting slung about. Momma screamed at Daddy and called him a name we were all forbidden to use. Daddy’s voice rose, but not as high as hers, and as far as I could tell, she wasn’t getting the best of him.

  “How could…Ann…I’m never…police…now!”

  “I didn’t know…JB…I swear…”

  They continued to quarrel, and Daddy was in the Great Room now, Momma running behind him. Clearly, he wanted to leave again. “You’ll shame her if you do that, John. You’ll shame her in front of everyone.”

  “The shame is on you!” He stomped out of the house and slammed the front door with a big boom. I heard his old truck crank up, and soon Daddy was gone. All of us were crying now. Momma didn’t come up to see us or check on us. Nobody went downstairs again that night. We didn’t know what to do. Momma was crying pitifully, and a part of me wanted to comfort her too, but right now I had to think of Addison and Loxley…and Jeopardy.

  “Come on, Belles. Let’s go see if Jeopardy will let us in.” We walked down the long hallway and tapped on the attic door. “Please let us in, Jeopardy. Daddy is gone, and we don’t want to go downstairs.”

  She opened the door, her face a swollen mess, her hair a pile of tangles. She’d been crying, but at least she didn’t look at me like she hated me. She stepped back and let us into her sanctuary. So this was where all the spare blankets and pillows had gone to. Who all was sleeping up here? Nobody talked. We were all confused, it seemed. All disappointed that Daddy had left us. All except Jeopardy. She was almost peaceful as she lit a candle for us and then a cigarette for herself and dropped the matchstick in an empty soda bottle. Nobody scolded her. We all found a place to lie down and waited for Daddy to come back.

  That’s where Aunt Dot found us the following morning; a tangle of arms and legs, all of us Belles sleeping on one big pallet. And then she told us the horrible news. Daddy was dead, hit by another vehicle on Bloody Highway 98. The rainy roads had kept anyone from finding him until it was too late. He’d bled out and was gone.

  The day after we buried him was the first time Loxley saw his ghost.

  None of the rest of us ever saw Daddy again.

  Chapter Thirteen—Jerica

  Arms were around my neck, sweet, young arms. They hugged me tight, and I felt the lightest whisper of a kiss on my cheek. My hand went to brush her hair, as I always did, but she slid away from me. My eyes blinked open, and I saw that I was alone. Again.

  It took a few moments for the heartbreak to come, but it did not fail to arrive. And with it came the realization that my Marisol would never hug me again.

  Marisol…baby girl.

  And I remembered the horrible dream—the complete and utter loss of John Jeffrey Belle. Harper’s loss. It would be something she never got over. I could feel that now.

  Oh my God! This was JB—John Jeffrey Belle was the very same man I met when I came to Summerleigh.

  He was no gardener but a ghost! Was he the one who left me the flowers? No. That was something a child would do, not a grown man. Not a tough hero like John Belle. I sat up on the bed trying to wrap my head around it all. And how was any of this getting me closer to finding Jeopardy Belle? Why was my daughter here? I swung the quilt back and decided there was no time like the present to get started on my mission. I’d fallen in love with this place. I wanted to see Summerleigh restored, not just for me but for Harper and all the Belle girls, but that act would be empty without finding Jeopardy and bringing her home to Desire. Where to get started? I’d pick Jesse’s brain later; he seemed like a guy who knew quite a bit about local lore. But in the meantime, I was going to that potting shed to find out for myself if the man I had seen was actually Harper’s father. What would my therapist say about all this?

  Ghosts aren’t real, Jerica. They are extensions of us, our emotions, unresolved feelings, but they aren’t real. Marisol is gone, and you have to forgive yourself. Let her go.

  And that had been the last time I’d seen Dr. Busby. What was the point? He didn’t believe me when I told him I saw Marisol. I knew I wasn’t responsible for my daughter’s death, but I think for some strange reason Dr. Busby believed otherwise. I knew for a fact Eddie blamed me. Yes, I’d been in the car when the train hit us, when the metal twisted and my baby screamed for her mother. That had been me, but I had done all I could do. It wasn’t my fault that the truck behind me pushed us onto the tracks. I smothered a sob and forced myself to keep moving.

  Keep moving, Jerica.

  I recognized this feeling. Not only was I knee-deep in grief again, but I was coming down with something. Hopefully not the flu. I didn’t mind taking care of others but had no patience for being sick myself. I simply had too much to do.

  I threw on some work clothes and my beat-up tennis shoes. With a heavy heart, I headed outside to look for the potting shed. Taking the gravel path to the left of the cottage seemed intuitive, so I followed it around and found a dilapidated shack not far in the distance. As I cleared a copse of trees and stood before a small potting shed, my heart sank. Windows were missing, many windows. A tattered blue tarp hung from the side of the roof, a clear indication that this building was probably now in complete
disrepair. With a sigh, I opened the door and stepped inside. My heart sank even further when I saw that the shelves held nothing more than pots of old soil, weeds and rusty gardening tools. Nobody was here, and nobody had been here for a very long time.

  “JB? Are you here?”

  I stood in the middle of the potting shed, my hair crackling on my neck. And as each moment passed, the feeling that someone watched me intensified. I asked again, “JB? John Jeffrey Belle? Are you here?”

  No one answered. Did I expect him to pipe up and say, “Yes, I’m over here?” Not really, but then again Summerleigh had proved to be a kind of magical place in that regard. As I walked around the shed, I was discouraged by the shape it was in but found an interesting book half hidden in a clod of dirt on a rickety potting table. Neat handwriting, I thought as I held a page up to the light to read the faded pencil markings better. A former gardener, possibly John Belle, had taken the time to write down the names of plants, the days they had been planted and other notations only a plant lover would understand. I flipped to the back of the book for more clues and was surprised to see that it didn’t belong to John Belle after all. This book had clearly belonged to a McIntyre. I squinted at the first name but couldn’t make it out.

  Interesting bit of history. I’m sure Jesse would love to see this.

  The laughter of little girls brought me back to the present. I ran to the window in front of me. The glass was broken, and I was careful not to place my hands in any of the panes. I almost fell to the ground when I saw the back of two girls clearing a group of trees in front of me, one with blond braids and the other with brown hair, like mine.

  Marisol! Like a madwoman, I ran down the path after them. “Marisol! Wait!”

  I heard the pair giggling again and even detected footsteps on the gravel not far ahead of me, but I could not catch up with them. No matter how fast I ran, they ran faster. Marisol and Loxley—that had certainly been Loxley—were always just out of my reach. I didn’t realize how far back I had traveled onto the property, but I had managed to navigate my way to the banks of a river. Was this Dog River? I’d read that this was a tributary of the Escatawpa, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I traveled the banks for a while, walking up and down. I found evidence that this had once been a popular party place, but solid footprints of two little girls were nonexistent.

  “Don’t let this be my imagination. Not again! I can’t do this again!”

  As if she heard me, Marisol peeked her head around the trunk of a live oak tree. My hands flew to my mouth as I muffled a surprised yelp. I whispered her name, but she just smiled and vanished. I raced to the tree, but my daughter had disappeared. The sound of footsteps running away told me I would not catch up with her. Nor did she want me to, for some reason. I collapsed under the tree and cried my eyes out. I cried like I hadn’t cried in two years. Why is this happening now? When I finished my crying jag, I got up and wiped my sweaty face with the back of my hand and walked back to Summerleigh.

  I had things to do today, and it was looking less likely that I would make it to Jesse’s benefit. I couldn’t trust my emotions, and I was pretty certain a serious bug had a hold of me. After hiking back, I spent the next hour arranging my meager belongings in the caretaker’s cottage and then took my camera and headed to the main house.

  I had already seen the ghost of my child, so what else was there to be afraid of? I was going to go inside and explore every inch of Summerleigh. I was a woman on a mission. I had to find Jeopardy Belle. If I found her, maybe Marisol would stay. Why else would she be here but to encourage me in my search?

  As I walked through the yard to the back of the house, I said aloud, “I’m coming, Jeopardy. I won’t let you down.”

  Chapter Fourteen—Harper

  Momma insisted that we eat dinner together at the supper table tonight. I couldn’t think why. My sisters and I had been living off sandwiches or dishes prepared by various church ladies for the past month since Daddy’s passing. For the first week after the funeral, Momma had kept to her room, crying night and day. Like all of us…except Jeopardy, who didn’t cry at all anymore. I knew her heart was breaking; I’d heard her crying the night after Daddy died, but nothing since. Even Aunt Dot tried to talk with her, but she wouldn’t speak about Daddy. Or anything, really. The only thing she did was sneak out of the house, smoke her stolen cigarettes in the potting shed and draw or doodle on paper. Once, I saw her shove a note into a chink in the attic wall, but she wasn’t pleased that I’d spied on her; when I snuck back to read it, the note was gone.

  She did strange things nowadays like wear bright lipstick and smudge mascara on her eyes. Momma never said a word to her, but she noticed. I could see her raise her eyebrows, though she said nothing. Feeling inspired, I dabbed on some of Momma’s palest pink lipstick one afternoon and got the back of her hand on my mouth. “Isn’t one whore in this family enough?” she asked me as I lay sprawled out on the ground.

  I never wore lipstick again. Not as long as she was alive.

  Miss Augustine had cooked tonight’s supper, chicken and dressing. It was loaded with onions and I hated every bite, but who knew when we would eat again? Even picky Addison swallowed a few bites. Momma surveyed us all between her neat spoons of food.

  Loxley ate like a hungry bear when she wasn’t giggling at something, something or someone none of the rest of us could see.

  “What in the world is so funny, Loxley Grace?”

  Her eyes widened as she focused her attention on Momma now. “Nothing, Momma,” was her sweet answer. It was an obvious lie, as she continued to giggle and spew Miss Augustine’s horrible cornbread dressing everywhere.

  “What do you see?” Jeopardy asked as she leaned next to Loxley.

  Loxley didn’t speak but played with her food.

  “Yes, Loxley. Who are you making such faces at? If it’s that funny, I want to know too.” Momma’s sweetest voice was always a trap that Loxley fell into. I tried to kick her under the table as a warning but missed. Addison yelped in pain.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “Daddy. Daddy is making funny faces, and he makes me laugh.”

  Only Jeopardy smiled.

  Momma rose to her feet, and Loxley shrank down in her chair. “You stop telling lies, Loxley Grace! Go to your room. No more supper for you.”

  She snatched my sister’s plate away, and the youngest Belle practically crawled out of the room. Momma put the near-empty plate in the sink and stared out the window into the dusky Mississippi evening. Fireflies were bouncing around already, and some of them hit the window. They looked like fairies that wanted permission to come inside. I could see them clearly.

  When Momma spoke again, it was a strange sound, like measured steel. “Jeopardy, Dr. Leland wants some of those jars of peaches we have in the laundry room. You take him three or four after supper. See that he pays you, though. At least a dollar a jar.”

  Jeopardy’s fork hit her plate, and her eyes narrowed.

  A dollar a jar? Who in their right mind would pay a dollar a jar for some peaches?

  “It’s almost dark, Momma. Can’t she go in the morning?” Addison asked nervously. Addie hated the dark and still slept with the lamp on every chance she got. She didn’t like the idea of any of us being in the dark now. Hadn’t Daddy died venturing out in the dark?

  Jeopardy crossed her bare arms and said, “No.”

  Momma turned around and put her hands behind her on the sink. She looked perfect, like a catalog model, but right at that moment, I knew something was wrong with her. She was like a mannequin, perfect to look at but without a soul. Yes, that was it. Her soul was gone. Or something.

  “I’ll go, Momma. I’m not afraid of the dark, and I can walk really fast. I don’t mind going for Jeopardy,” I offered as an alternative.

  Momma smiled at Jeopardy. “Should I let your sister go instead?”

  Jeopardy was on her feet now. “You wouldn’t send her. You wouldn’t dare!”<
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  Momma’s left eyebrow lifted slightly, but she never shifted her gaze from Jeopardy’s pinched face. “Wouldn’t I?”

  Jeopardy threw her plate on the floor, and cornbread splattered all over the tile. Addison crept out of her chair and stood by the door that led to the parlor. I couldn’t move. What do I do? Daddy? Are you here?

  “You can’t do that! You wouldn’t do that!”

  “I would too. You do what I tell you, Jeopardy. We need the money.”

  Jeopardy slammed her chair under the table and stalked into the pantry to retrieve a few jars of peaches. She stuffed them in a cloth bag we kept hanging next to Momma’s purse and keys.

  “Can’t we drive over there and drop them off? I could take Daddy’s truck,” I offered as one last idea to avoid whatever disaster lay ahead of us.

  “No, we don’t have the gas for that. Jeopardy can take the peaches; you clean up this mess, Harper.” Momma lit a cigarette as the screen door slapped closed. Jeopardy was gone. I obediently cleaned up the mess while I smothered my tears. Momma left the kitchen to listen to Amanda of Honeymoon Hill on the stand-up radio.

  It got dark fast. By the time I dried the last dish, it was well after eight and there was no sign of my sister. I snuck Loxley a sandwich and a glass of milk before I went in to bed.

  I waited up for Jeopardy, hoping to hear that she was safe and sound, but my tired eyes let me down. I closed them only for a moment. And when I opened them again, the sun was up and Loxley was sleeping beside me.

  I wondered if Jeopardy ever made it home. No one else was awake except Momma, who was busy putting on her face. I could hear her humming to herself like she always did when she got dressed in the mornings. I’d have to cook breakfast soon, but I had enough time to slip upstairs. Whether Jeopardy liked it or not, I was going to invade her castle.

  The door wasn’t locked. I didn’t have to knock or beg for permission to come in. Jeopardy was there, sleeping in nothing but her slip. I gasped at the sight of her. From head to toe, Jeopardy was covered in bruises.