Love Me If You Must

7

A song rolled off my tongue as I grabbed my groceries from the backseat and headed toward the house. I had more fun shopping today than I could remember. David was ever the gentleman. He didn’t ask too many questions, didn’t talk too much about himself. We’d been content just pushing a cart together.

He’d helped me load my supplies into the car at the grocery store, then followed me home, giving a friendly beep of farewell as he headed down the street to his own driveway. I could hear the slam of his car door two garages over even now.

I smiled, breathing in the bitter scent of crushed autumn leaves. It felt good to dip my big toe back into the pool of human companionship.

I paused at the steps to the back porch and wrinkled my nose at the cedar growing out of control against the house. I made a mental note to replace it with a short, tame barberry and plenty of wood chips. Then buyers could better appreciate the beauty of the turned spindles that followed the length of the rail, especially once all the trim got a fresh coat of white paint come summer.

I continued up the steps, reaching for the keys while trying to keep hold of the paper bags in my arms. The ring jangled free of my pocket. At the same moment, my toe kicked something soft.

I jerked back, expecting to see the mangled corpse of a jack-o’-lantern, a prank in keeping with the season. Instead, a cloth sack filled to the brim with ripe, juicy tomatoes awaited discovery.

I glanced across the fence to Brad’s backyard. Obviously, he decided to follow through on his promised delivery despite my less-than-stellar behavior. How sweet.

As I put away my grocery items, I replayed my afternoon with David. He’d been so attentive, unloading the cart at the checkout lane. I found it hard to believe he’d been raised a “commoner,” as he put it. David was nothing if not well-bred. And it had been a good long time since a man went out of his way to treat me like a lady. I knew better than to get my hopes up, but it never hurt to dream.

I went to the porch and retrieved the gift tomatoes. I unloaded at least a dozen of them into the veggie bin. I’d probably look like a tomato by the time I got done eating them all. If Brad had mentioned this peace offering before I went shopping, I could have saved a buck eighty-nine.

I closed the fridge. Outside, rain began pelting the earth. The wind blew a sheet of water against the kitchen window.

A crash of thunder ripped through the house, shaking the floor beneath me. Lightning followed close on its heels, flashing a brilliant white against the door to the basement as I passed by. For a split second, the outline of a woman appeared on its painted surface.

I screamed and fell backward. My head bumped against the wall behind me. The lightning flashed again. The panels were bare.

I gave a laugh of relief. I’d been nearly knocked unconscious by my own shadow. I rubbed the back of my head.

“Pull it together, Tish,” I said to the empty room. I stood up and patted the dirt off my backside, hoping to brush off a little imagination with it.

It had been only my shadow on the door, not some specter beckoning to free her wronged spirit. With Officer Brad and Lloyd & Sons as my witnesses, there was no body in my basement.

From where I stood, I could see that the bolt still secured the door. Even the swamp monster couldn’t get up here. Still, I wasn’t feeling very brave. I inched my way past, never taking my eye off the doorknob, expecting to see it turn any second . . .

I made it to the bathroom and flipped the lock.

How had I gone all afternoon without thinking of the body that was not in my basement? Obviously, being in David’s company helped. I could only hope that I’d get to spend more time with him—I had to do something to keep my sanity. It would be pathetic if the neighbors found me one day, locked in my bathroom, rocking back and forth on the toilet seat and ranting about a body in my cistern, when of course there was no body in my cistern.

The flush of the toilet blended with the peal of a train whistle as an engine flew past. Funny, a sound I’d dreaded only last night was a comfort to me now. The blaring notes were rooted in reality. They strengthened me enough that I could open the door and walk back into the kitchen. There was no need to be nervous.

There was no body.

That night, after an evening topped off by a tomato salad and a romance novel minus the ghosts, I fell asleep to the sound of rain. I woke the next day to the coo of a mourning dove. Somewhere in between must have been more ear-splitting whistles, but my only conscious memory was of a dream that had me trapped in Deucey’s front seat, with Grandma driving.

“Your mother was always a good girl,” she said, smiling at me. Her white hair was arranged in perfect curls around her face. Red lipstick and drawn-on eyebrows made her seem younger than her years.

When I looked at her hands, wrinkled and old, gripping the steering wheel, that “something’s amiss” feeling came over me—the one you get when you meet someone in a dream, and all of a sudden you remember that in real life the person is dead. Suddenly I was scared. My legs and arms felt bolted to the bench seat. I watched, helpless, as Grandma’s face became an oozing mass of color, as if an artist had swirled his brush on the canvas to blot out a mistake.

The contorted mouth talked to me. “Why couldn’t you have been more like your mother?”

Then we were airborne, with the bottom of Mead Quarry racing up to meet us.

I was awake now, more so than after my usual two cups of coffee. And a good thing too. It was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

Milk sloshed over the edges of the bowl as I ate a hurried breakfast. I decided to strip the wallpaper from the front entry while waiting for Lloyd & Sons to arrive. I could accomplish the modest-sized project before lunch and feel like I was at least headed in the right direction.

I painted water over the ’70s pattern, gave it a few minutes to soak in, then scraped the layers off with a wide, flat-edged putty knife. It wasn’t the most effective way to rid the walls of their covering, but the obsessive-compulsive in me loved the way the paper came off in long spirals that piled up on the floor.

One wall was stripped bare when I realized Lloyd hadn’t arrived yet. I flipped open my phone and dialed up his cell.

“Lloyd here,” he answered in tandem with crackling airwaves.

“Tish Amble. I thought we were on for today.”

There was a pause while he tried to come up with a good excuse for stiffing me.

“Got tied up . . . crackle . . . deck repair . . . crackle . . . crackle . . . get the permit?”

“Permit for what? I thought you were taking care of all the permits.”

I could barely hear his reply as the signal cut in and out.

“. . . get the permit . . . for the cistern . . . by tomorrow.”

“By tomorrow? Fine. In fact, I’ll take care of it right now.”

The line was nothing but static as I jammed the disconnect button with my finger. What kind of contractor didn’t pull his own permits? It’s not like it took a college degree to get permission to knock down a stone wall.

I picked up the soggy paper shavings and dropped them in a plastic bag. Now I’d have to get cleaned up and face the village guardians myself.

But it would be worth it if it meant getting rid of that creepy pile of rocks once and for all.