Many Blessings

Chapter Four

Brad stared out the window as they headed home. He’d had a nice conversation with Julie while waiting for Ellis to finish talking with Mandaline.

Ellis really liked Mandaline. Was attracted to her. Brad actually felt glad about that, because he was attracted to Mandaline, too.

Julie was really happy about that. She’d told him so.

“You told Mandaline you think what’s happening isn’t real,” he said to Ellis.

He heard Ellis sigh next to him. “Buddy, I know you believe it’s real. That’s what matters.”

Brad held back his laugh. “But you don’t believe it’s real.”

Poor Ellis. How Ellis never lost his patience with him, he didn’t know. But he loved him for it. “All that I care about,” Ellis said, “is that you think it’s real. We have a deal, though. Right?”

Brad nodded, still staring out the window. “If she doesn’t find anything, I go back to the VA for more tests.” He finally pulled his gaze from the window and looked at Ellis. “You won’t let them lock me up, will you?” he quietly asked.

Ellis shook his head. “Never. We have a deal.” He reached over and patted Brad on the leg, but didn’t take his eyes from the road. “I told you, we’re a team. Death do us part.”

Brad nodded and had to look back out the window to conceal his smile at the sound of Julie’s laugh. He didn’t want Ellis to ask him what was so funny. Then he’d have to tell him about Julie. That he’d been talking to her since the afternoon she’d died.

That might make Ellis reconsider their deal.

He didn’t understand why he couldn’t lie or keep secrets anymore. Not that he’d been a sociopath or anything…before. But poor Mom and Dad, they’d learned not to ask innocent questions like, “Does this look okay?” or “Do I look fat in this?”

It was like he had to sit back and listen to his own answer.

That frustrated him. He didn’t want to lie, per se, but he didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings. He couldn’t even tell little white fibs to make people happy. And trying to deflect answering a question usually made people want him to answer it that much more.

If Ellis saw him smiling and asked him what was so funny, he’d have to tell him about Julie.

He’d also have to tell him why Julie was laughing so hard.

Ellis would never believe that they’d found their unicorn. A unicorn, a woman perfect for them both. At least, that was what Julie said.

And he suspected Julie wouldn’t lie to him. No, not at all. Because she loved Mandaline and wanted her to be happy.

Ellis shut the car off and stared at the house.

“Are you coming in?” Brad asked.

“Yeah, buddy. I just need a minute.”

“Are you upset that Julie died?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

“She was nice.”

“Yeah. She really took a shine to you.”

“I like Mandaline.”

“I like her, too.”

Ellis hoped he wouldn’t have to order Brad to leave him alone. He hated doing it and always felt guilty about it, even though Brad had said he didn’t mind and even admitted that sometimes he needed the direct order.

Brad opened his car door, much to Ellis’ relief. He swung his legs out and sat there for a moment, staring at the ground. “Can we go to the tree planting on Saturday?” Brad asked.

“Sure, buddy.”

“Okay.” He got out, closed the door behind him, and headed to the house.

Ellis put his head back against the seat and blew out a long breath. He watched as Brad unlocked the side door they used most and headed inside. He held his breath, but the alarm didn’t go off.

Brad managed to set it off while arming or disarming it an average of once a week.

Did I tell him about the tree planting? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t think he had. Then again, maybe one of the other employees had. When he’d followed Mandaline out of the private room, he’d found Brad standing by Julie’s urn and staring at it.

No, without a doubt he knew Brad thought what he was experiencing was absolutely real. Thank god Mandaline was willing to help get them through this. The faster they did, the faster he could talk to Brad’s doctors and try to get to the root of his problems. He hated the thought of having to put him on more medication. Right now, Brad took an anticonvulsant and that was it. He’d been on a lot of meds early on after the accident. Ellis worried that if Brad needed any drugs for what he was experiencing now that it could mess with his art.

And Ellis wanted to avoid that at all costs. No, Brad didn’t take any interest in the marketing of it, and that was fine. He’d happily handle that for him.

The look on Brad’s face when he’d surprised him with the trip to Miami, to the gallery hosting the show, had been priceless. And the joy on Brad’s features as person after person came up to him and praised his work…

Hell, he could die happy, and he wasn’t even the artist.

Brad liked that he could make people happy, make them smile. The money was irrelevant to either of them. Between the settlement, Brad’s VA benefits, and Ellis’ law firm, they didn’t need the sales of the artwork. Ellis put the money from the art sales into the trust. If Brad wanted to use it for the renovation, they could dip into it as needed. But Ellis wanted to build as large a nest egg for his friend as possible. In case something ever happened to him, and he couldn’t be there to take care of Brad.

Brad had fallen in love with the house while they were making their initial tour of Brooksville. While Ellis had serious misgivings about it, he’d relented because it was the first thing Brad had acted really passionate about other than his art since the accident.

But…it needed a lot of work. Brad spent a few hours almost every day pecking away at it. Once the plumbers and electricians had taken care of their parts, Brad wanted to do the rest. Ellis had put his foot down about what would eventually be the guest bathroom, calling in a contractor to finish the second-floor bathroom so they could move in. And the central heat and AC systems.

It had four bedrooms, including a master bedroom with an en suite. A second bathroom upstairs, the one that was now finished, and a powder room downstairs. Brad had claimed the attic as his studio, where they would eventually add yet another bathroom. With a new roof, and plenty of insulation, the AC kept it a comfortable temperature.

And Brad seemed content.

For his part, he was sick of washing dishes in a mop sink in the utility room because Brad couldn’t decide between an old country kitchen scheme or a modern look with granite countertops. They had an electric range oven, which sat unplugged in one corner of the kitchen, and the fridge sat in the hallway, plugged into an extension cord. They cooked with an electric skillet, a hotplate, a toaster oven, and a microwave.

But he’d do it for Brad.

Not for the first time he wondered if the move to the house from the apartment at the office had triggered Brad’s new symptoms. Brad had settled well into the apartment after leaving Tampa, even though with two small bedrooms and an efficiency kitchen it’d been a tight fit.

Maybe the stress is getting to him.

He’d quit hinting around about calling in contractors to finish the house once and for all. It only irritated him when Brad refused.

And the irritation always made him feel guilty, like a real shit.

At least he’s not a hoarder.

Ellis let out a snort and finally followed Brad into the house.

Mandaline sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. She didn’t understand why Julie had bought a king-sized bed a few months ago. It felt huge, even though it was comfortable.

Beside her, Damiago had pressed himself into a tight, purring ball against her thigh.

On her other side, Persnickety lay with his rump pressed against her other thigh.

She had the TV on, tuned to Cartoon Network. On the lap desk she’d laid out a spread of Tarot cards from the Rider-Waite deck she frequently used for readings for customers.

Her meeting with Ellis and Brad earlier still played through her mind. She knew a rational person would explain her sudden interest in the men as an easy way to focus on something other than the loss of her friend.

Tonight she did not want to be a rational person.

Tonight all she wanted to do was not think about how lonely she felt and how much her heart hurt.

Tomorrow she’d meet with Sami and Matt. She knew they were hurting, too. They were the only ones who could truly understand the pain she felt right now. They’d loved Steve, and they’d liked Julie. They were also burdened by guilt not theirs to shoulder.

Not unlike Ellis.

She sighed as she looked at the cards. They were as muddled as her mind.

I can’t read for anyone right now, much less myself.

She gathered them up, shuffled them, then returned them to the drawstring bag she stored them in before putting it and the lap desk on the chair next to the bed. It was the third deck she’d tried that evening with the same results. She had yet to sage her personal The Quest Tarot deck. She had barely been able to stomach picking it up the other day and moving it to the office, where it still sat on a shelf near Julie’s…her desk.

She wasn’t even sure if getting herself a new deck would help, or if she’d have to abandon that one altogether based on the memories she now associated with it.

Ellis and Brad kept creeping into her mind. After they’d left, once she finally convinced Sachi and the others to go, she’d closed the store and looked up Brad’s art online.

Breathtaking was only one word for it, and a completely inadequate word at that. His style was indefinable simply because he didn’t have a style. Every piece was unique, exquisite. Whether drawing, watercolor, acrylic, charcoal—there was an honesty and simple beauty in his work that she couldn’t remember seeing anywhere else before.

She didn’t even mind that Ellis admitted he didn’t believe in anything supernatural. She couldn’t blame him. She was just glad he’d been upfront and honest about it. His dedication to Brad more than showed what a good heart he had.

Leaving the TV on for noise, she turned off the bedside lamp and rolled onto her side.

What is so urgent about them, Julie? What did you see when you shook Brad’s hand? She didn’t doubt Ellis’ account of Julie’s handshake with Brad. Like Mandaline, Julie’d had finely tuned empathic senses. There was something special about Brad, beyond what Ellis recounted.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

Brad lay on his back in bed, eyes open as he stared at the ceiling. Julie went quiet not long after they returned home. When he’d gone up to his studio to work, he’d only managed about an hour before the shadows started flickering at the edges of his vision again, darting in and out of the periphery just to disappear when he turned his head.

He also didn’t like what he painted. The colors were dark, depressing.

It scared him a little.

He’d repainted several canvasses the past couple of weeks, things he didn’t want Ellis to see. Although Ellis never came up to his studio without asking first, or without him inviting him up. He loved Ellis for that, that he wanted to give him privacy to work.

He didn’t like the way his mood darkened, either. That was something else he hadn’t told Ellis yet. But then again, Ellis hadn’t asked him about mood changes, so Brad hadn’t felt compelled to tell him that.

And he didn’t like the feeling of being watched in the studio. The feeling went away when he came down to the second or first floors, but after spending time in the attic, he always felt like someone was watching him.

Even though he’d asked the unseen presence to talk to him, it never did. He didn’t even know if it was really a presence, like Julie or some of the others that talked to him. And the noises he heard sounded like voices, but muffled, as if from a great distance away, indiscernible.

He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. He really wanted to see Mandaline again. Alone this time, so he could talk to her without Ellis hearing and asking questions. He wanted to know if Julie was real, or if he was imagining her.

Mandaline awoke the next morning with eyes so puffy she didn’t know how she’d make it through the day. She ran cold water over a washcloth and stood in the kitchen with it pressed against her face while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

I wonder what stage I’m in. She knew grief was a process, that she wouldn’t magickally wake up on the other side of this experience all happy and bouncy.

She had quickly passed through denial and bargaining about the same time that first evening after seeing Julie’s body in the morgue and knowing nothing she did or said would bring back her friend.

But today was Thursday, marking a week since…that.

She felt the dark edges of anger beating at her soul and struggled against them. Julie hadn’t been a person to harbor grudges. She simply moved on with her life, not looking back.

Mandaline wanted to live the way Julie had lived, to keep her friend’s spirit alive, to make her proud.

She didn’t want to feel angry. She didn’t want to wallow in dark emotions that would not only make her unhappy, but would make it nearly impossible for her to do her job, to help people.

Pers walked into the kitchen and nosed her ankle.

“I know, buddy. I’ll get you outside in a minute.”

Downstairs, she heard the back door open and the sound of someone disarming the alarm. She walked over to the stairwell and called down. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Sachi called up. She appeared in the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. “You okay?”

Mandaline squinted down at her. “It’s only seven.”

“I know,” she said with what sounded like forced brightness. “I told you I wanted to go through and do inventory.”

We all cope in our own way. Perhaps this was how workaholic Sachi was coping, not only with Julie’s loss, but with the demons that haunted her. “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Can you take Pers out, please? I just woke up. I’m starting coffee if you want some.”

“Of course I’ll walk him.” She came up the stairs and called the little dog to her. “And yes on the coffee, please.”

“If I’m in the shower when you come back, just go ahead and pour yourself some.”

Sachi cocked her head as she looked at her. “If you want to stay up here today—”

“No.” She smiled, hoping to gentle the way it came out. “I need to stay busy. And I have Sami and Matt coming in at ten.”

Sachi’s expression darkened. “Are you sure you want them here?”

“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Libbie and Grover. They’re hurting as badly as we are. More, in some ways. They nearly died, too. Please pass the word that I’m begging all of you to treat them with love and light, the way Julie would have wanted.”

Sachi held the dog close and seemed to slump against the wall. “Okay,” she softly said. “You’re right.” Sachi had a loving, beautiful heart and was fiercely loyal and protective of her friends. Although as a deeply ingrained defense mechanism she often came off abrasive and sarcastic, if not downright ornery. If someone didn’t know her and started out on the wrong foot with her, they sometimes found it hard to warm up to her.

Sachi rarely shared the source of her pain with anyone. Mandaline was one of the few she had. Frankly, Mandaline didn’t know how Sachi came out on the other end of things as strong as she had.

She’d had plenty of pain in her life before Julie took her under her wing a few years earlier. Mandaline loved Sachi and knew their relationship would deepen as a result of their shared loss.

It didn’t make Julie’s death any easier to accept, but it would make moving forward easier.

“Thank you, Sachi. They didn’t cause Julie’s death.”

“I know.” She scratched the dog’s neck and pressed her face against the top of his head. “I’m just…angry. So damned angry. I haven’t felt this angry since…” Mandaline watched her throat work as she swallowed hard, old, bad memories obviously struggling to break through.

Mandaline put down the washcloth and walked over to her friend. She hugged her, with Pers trying to lick both of them. “I’m struggling with that, too. I think we all will. But misplacing our anger won’t help. It’ll only hurt us in the long run.”

Sachi nodded. “I know.” Sachi apparently realized she’d let down her defenses and showed a little vulnerability. Mandaline felt the shift as Sachi quickly rebuilt her walls. She smiled. “Let me get this guy outside before he pops.”

Mandaline released her and watched her walk down the stairs. She returned to the bedroom and searched for something to wear, digging through the plastic storage tubs she’d hastily bought and dumped all her clothes into.

She didn’t have the heart to go through Julie’s belongings yet. Both she and Sachi could fit into many of Julie’s clothes. She wanted to wait for a little while, at least, and have a private evening for the two of them to do it together. She suspected Julie, who loved thrift stores and upcycling things, would have approved.

Thirty minutes later, she was showered, dressed, and downstairs with a mug of coffee. Sachi had already gotten to work, with Pers and Damiago both watching from the smallest sofa. Technically, neither animal should be downstairs. Julie used to keep the door to the stairwell closed during business hours, to keep Pers, and now Damiago, locked out of the store due to health department regs. Because of the coffee counter, they weren’t supposed to have animals in the store area.

Mandaline suspected both the animals and the humans of Many Blessings would greatly benefit from mingling somewhat today. She’d allow them both to roam free for now. Since they didn’t open until nine, technically she wasn’t breaking the law.

Besides, it’s my store, dammit.

Sachi was busy with a clipboard full of printouts, going section by section to do inventory, a steaming cup of coffee beside her.

Mandaline stopped by the shelf holding Julie’s urn. She adjusted the vase of wildflowers. “Hi, sister,” she whispered. She brushed it with her fingers. Julie hadn’t left instructions about what to do with her ashes, specifically stating that she left that up to Mandaline. One of Julie’s friends did woodworking and had offered to make the box, working nonstop for two days to have it ready in time.

The heart and love that went into it made it that much more special.

It felt like Julie was still there, in a way, looking out for them. It would be a daily reminder to keep her spirit alive, to keep her efforts to help people going strong.

Mina and Paige both showed up by eight.

“Why is everyone here so early?” Mandaline asked them. “Well, okay, I know why Miss Workaholic is here, but you two didn’t have to come in so early.”

They shared a glance. Paige finally spoke up. “We all talked about it and we don’t want you to have to be alone. Not right now. Not…this soon.”

Mandaline enveloped them both in a hug. “Thank you. But seriously, I’m going to be okay. It’ll be rough for a while, and I’m going to cry a lot more tears, but I’ll get through it. We’ll all get through it.”

A knock on the front door caught her attention. She turned to see Grover standing there, bakery boxes in his arms.

She hurried over and unlocked it to let him in.

“I brought your daily order,” he said as he carried them over to the counter where he set them down. “Libbie sent me.”

“Aw, thank you.” She gave him a hug. “You didn’t have to do that. I was going to come for them.”

“I know, but Libbie was worried about you and so was I.”

“You weren’t planning on sitting in on my appointment with Sami and Matt this morning, were you?” she playfully teased. He was dressed for working in the bakery, wearing an apron over a white T-shirt and black-and-white checked pants.

He let out a sigh. “No, honey. I wish I could but I know you’re stubborn.”

She smiled. “Yes, I am a stubborn witch. Let me get you a check.” She went to the office and wrote out a check. It was always the same amount. She brought it back to him and hugged him again. “I’ll see you at noon.”

“Just…” He looked over at Sachi. “Make her take it easy, okay?”

Sachi grinned and snapped him a salute. “Yes, sir.”

He rolled his eyes, but wore a smile as he shook his head.