The House on Tradd Street (38 page)

I heard his cell phone ring, and he stopped but I kept going. I had almost reached the next block when I heard him call my name again.

“Melanie, please wait.”

I stopped in the middle of the street, my hands on my hips. I thought about telling him about Emily then, to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. But then I remembered the way he’d tilted his head and the way she had touched his hair, and I knew that I couldn’t. He had to know. I just needed to figure out how I could tell him without destroying us both.

“What, Jack? What part of no are you not getting?”

When he reached me, he didn’t stop but grabbed my arm and kept walking. “That was your dad.”

“Is he all right?” I felt an edge of worry nudge my conscience. I never worried about my father anymore. I’d filled that quota years ago.

“After you told him that you grandfather’s name was on the deed to Magnolia Ridge, he decided to go through your grandfather’s effects to see if he could find out anything more about your grandfather Gus and his connection to the Vanderhorsts.”

“And did he?” I asked, breathless because we were almost running.

“He found a locked humidor that had belonged to Gus. He broke the lock and said that we need to come see what he found inside.”

I tried to dig in my heels to make him stop, but that only succeeded in dragging me for a few steps until I could start running again. “Stop it, Jack! No more, remember? There’s no more mystery to solve.”

He didn’t reply but continued to drag me down Church Street, capturing the attention of two people dressed up as salt and pepper shakers walking together on the opposite side of the street.

“Jack, stop. I don’t care. None of this matters anymore. Not to mention the facts that I’m pissed at you and my father because I told you to get out of my house and that I never wanted to see you again. And now I find that the two of you have continued to work on this supposed mystery behind my back.”

We’d reached his car where he dropped my arm and glared at me. “Let’s pretend for one minute that it’s not about you or me anymore, all right? That maybe this whole project meant a lot more to your father than either one of us could have guessed. And that without it to focus on, he’s a little . . . lost.”

My anger dissipated quickly, replaced by the heavy weight of dread. “What are you trying to tell me, Jack? Is my dad drinking again?”

Jack opened the passenger door of his car. “That would depend on how fast we get there, I suppose.”

“Get where?”

“To Blackbeard’s. He’s sitting at a table now with a glass of gin in front of him.”

I slid into my seat without another word, wishing that I didn’t feel so disappointed and wondering why, after everything I had grown up knowing, I’d still managed to find a small sliver of hope.

T
he drive to East Bay was short but seemed to take place in slow motion. I kept dialing my father’s cell phone, hanging up each time it went to voice mail. My emotions bounced among anger at Jack, worry over my father, and a little nudge of hope that maybe he really had discovered something about Louisa and Nevin.

We parked in the same place we had when we’d been there for our date, then raced into the restaurant. Several waitresses turned and gave Jack a greeting, which he apparently didn’t see or didn’t care to acknowledge as his eyes swept the patrons in the bar area. We spotted my father at the same time, sitting at a wooden table in the far corner under a Ford Motor Company neon sign. The middle of the table was occupied by a burl walnut humidor, and next to my father’s right hand sat a full glass of gin, straight up, the way he liked it. I knew that because he’d taught me how to measure two shots for him when he was too drunk to hold the bottle steady. Being a military man, he always had to have it measured precisely, regardless of the fact that drinking from the bottle would have been equally as effective.

Jack pulled two chairs from another table, and we sat down. My father didn’t once look up at us, preferring instead to stare at the clear promise of oblivion offered by the glass of gin.

“Daddy?” I said, not realizing until after I’d said it that I’d reverted back to the old name I’d called him when I was little. “Are you all right?”

He acted as if he hadn’t heard me. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, how something so small can take all your troubles away while at the same time making them so much worse?”

I traded a worried glance with Jack. “You shouldn’t be here, Jim,” Jack said.

My dad didn’t move his head, but his eyes looked up at Jack. “You think I don’t know that?”

“How much have you had?” I was proud that my voice was steady, as if I were making a real estate offer on behalf of my clients.

He turned his eyes to me and I saw that they were clear. “Not a drop. Yet.”

I sat back but without any relief. He’d turned his fixed gaze on the glass again.

Jack also sat back, feigning a relaxed attitude while both of us watched my dad and the glass like a cat would watch a mouse hole. We didn’t say anything else, as if we both realized that my dad needed to talk first, regardless of how long that might take. A waitress appeared—an older woman who apparently didn’t know Jack but was still taken with his charms as she made sure to lean down enough to show off her ample cleavage. We each ordered Cokes, then returned to silence as we waited for my dad to speak.

We were halfway through our Cokes before he spoke again. Without looking at either one of us, he said, “What is it with mothers leaving their children? Can there be anything more devastating to a child?”

I felt every muscle and bone go rigid in my body, feeling like a riverbed that had suddenly been sucked dry of water. We didn’t talk about my mother’s absence. Never. After she’d left, I’d have a screaming fit if anybody mentioned her name. And as I grew older, it began to seem as if she’d never been there at all, and my father and I were content to pretend it was true.

“Daddy, I don’t want to talk about that now. This is about you, all right? Jack and I are here to help you.”

“But that’s it, don’t you see? My drinking, and your mother’s disappearance, and you—it’s all related. There can’t be one without the other.” He laughed softly. “There I was, in the spare room where I keep all the junk I’ve accumulated over the years, holding that box and seeing what was inside of it, when it just hit me.”

“What, Daddy? What are you talking about?”

He rubbed his eyes with his hands, still avoiding looking at me. “I don’t think I can kick this thing if we can’t go back to that one thing that changed our lives.”

“Daddy, I don’t . . .” Jack’s hand over mine made me stop.

“I need to tell you a few things, Melanie. Things that won’t be easy to hear, but things you need to hear, nevertheless. I can’t help but think that once I get all of it out of me, this compulsion to destroy myself with gin might not be as strong.”

“And you figured this out by looking inside this box?” I heard the dismissive tone in my voice and cringed, but neither Jack nor my dad said anything. It was almost as if we were all in agreement that I was due a bit of skepticism and recrimination.

“Yep. I did. We’ve got two stories of missing mothers. And I can’t help but think that if we figure out one, we can figure out the other.”

Jack squeezed my arm and I looked between him and my father, feeling like a Catholic in the confessional, and not at all sure if my penance would be easier to bear than the weight of my sins. I couldn’t speak, but simply nodded, then checked for the nearest exit just in case I had the urge to run away as fast as I could.

“When you and your mother first moved in with your grandmother, it was because of me. We were . . . arguing. It was stupid, really, because it was about your imaginary friends. I didn’t think it was healthy but your mother seemed to be encouraging it. But it wasn’t really about you at all, you see? Ginette was growing away from me. Her career was starting to take off, and she was getting all sorts of publicity. I wasn’t comfortable with that at all, and I made her suffer for it by picking fights and telling her that she wasn’t a good mother.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I blamed her for socially isolating you by encouraging your reliance on these imaginary friends that existed only in your head.”

He stopped to swallow hard, and I glanced at the back door that I’d spied before, gauging how long it would take for Jack to catch up to me if I ran.

“But she was a good mother, you know. She loved you more than anything. More than her career. More than me. And I was okay with that because I loved you, too. You were a sweet child, Melanie.” He turned to Jack. “As hard as you might find that to believe, she really was.”

I sent my dad a reproachful look. “Sorry, Melanie, but I just want to make sure Jack is on the same page with us.” He continued. “But that night, when we were arguing . . .” He shook his head. “I’d been drinking. I’d always been a social drinker, never really had any trouble keeping in control. But that night I’d read an article about your mother in the paper, about how Charleston couldn’t contain such a talent anymore and that it was time for her to spread her wings and show the world what she could do. There was a picture of her. With her manager. I knew there was nothing to it, but the gin got to talking so that by the time she came home there was nothing she could do or say that would make me think otherwise.”

He touched the glass for the first time, and began spinning it in a circle on the table. Neither Jack nor I took our eyes off of his fingers as the glass made its etching sound on the wood. “I loved her, you see. Maybe too much. But I didn’t want to share her with the rest of the world when all I ever wanted her to be was mine.”

He stilled the glass, both palms pressing against its sides. “We fought and said some ugly words to each other. And then . . .” His chin dropped down to his chest. “Damn. I don’t . . .” He looked back up at us and his eyes were wet. I’d never seen him like this before. It was honest, and pure and undiluted by alcohol, and I wanted to crawl up in his lap and lay my head on his shoulder as I’d done when I was a little girl.

He took a deep breath. “I told her to leave. To go away. That we didn’t need her anyway.” He shrugged. “So she did. But she took you with her, and that was the biggest heartbreak of all.”

Jack tapped my arm and handed me a paper napkin. I touched my cheek, unaware that I’d been crying and embarrassed to have been caught.

“And then, just when I thought we were working things out, she . . . left. Just left. Leaving you with me.” He let go of the glass and leaned his forehead against the heels of his hands and was silent for a long moment. “What I’m trying to say is that her leaving was about her and me—not about you. And that you shouldn’t blame her for what she did. I told her that we were better off without her and maybe something happened that made her believe it. I don’t know. I never gave her the chance to explain.”

“You never talked to her? You just let her go?” For the first time in my life, my loyalty was divided evenly between my parents.

He returned his focus to the glass of gin. “She tried to talk to me, to call me. I wouldn’t see her, and I wouldn’t take her calls. I was too angry, too hurt. She’d made up her mind, and it didn’t matter what I wanted. And I’d started drinking more. Not enough that anybody would notice but enough that I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.”

“But why didn’t she call me? Why didn’t she come to see me?”

My dad’s eyes met Jack’s before turning to me. “She did.”

“What?” I stared back at him, incredulous. “Then why did I never see her again or speak with her?” My words slowed like a child’s ball that had reached the bottom of the hill, as I realized I’d known the answer before I asked it.

I stood abruptly, ready to leave, but neither one of them made a move to stop me. It was almost as if we all realized that maybe I had finally grown up, and it was time to face the truth.

“I told her you didn’t want to see her because it upset you too much. And when she called, I told her the same thing. After a while, it became the truth—remember? Remember how you’d scream if anybody mentioned her name? So then it seemed to me that I wasn’t lying anymore. Not that it mattered because I was too busy medicating myself with gin to see how much you must have been hurting.”

Stiffly, I sat down again. “How long did she keep trying?”

My dad looked down at his hands, unable to meet my eyes. “Until you went to college. I guess she figured you were adult enough then to call her yourself.”

Somehow, Jack had managed to move his chair close enough so that he could put his arm around me. I was too numb to even try to pull away, much less to remember why I wanted to. I indelicately blew my nose into the napkin and then crumpled it into one of my balled fists. “She . . . she tried to reach me. To see me. And you wouldn’t let her.”

His shoulders slumped as his hands slipped to the edge of the table. “We acted like children, and not like the parents you needed. We wanted to hurt each other—not you. But it seems like that’s what ended up happening.” Leaning forward, he took both of my frozen hands in his, the skin callused from his months of digging holes and laying bricks. “Never—not ever—did either one of us stop loving you. We never did.”