The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(71)

With renewed confidence, I parked the car in the carriage house and hoisted each child in my arms, entering the house through the kitchen. I heard them laughing from somewhere inside the house, the sound of a golf ball being struck as loud as a firecracker in my ears. I listened to all three dogs barking and scampering after what sounded like a ball rolling across the hard floor, followed by a shout of laughter from Jack. Then there was a silence so loud and pregnant that I couldn’t move, could barely breathe. A silence that seemed to go on and on. Even my heartbeats seemed leaden. The children watched me in absolute silence, as if they, too, wondered what was happening on the other side of the kitchen door.

I forgot all about the new Melanie, leaving her on her knees panting in the dust. Quietly, I stepped back through the kitchen and let myself out the door, closing it softly behind us.





CHAPTER 20


Iglanced up at the sound of a car door slamming and saw my mother’s car parked behind mine in the driveway at the Pinckney mansion on South Battery. It was a Sunday, so the workmen’s trucks were gone, although the overflowing Dumpster still monopolized most of the driveway.

She wore a long and drapey red sweater over a black blouse and cigarette pants, with small, dainty kitten heels on her feet. Red leather gloves covered her hands up over her wrists. She looked beautiful as always, and way too young to be my mother. The only thing marring her features as she approached me was the small crease in her brow caused by her expression of concern when she regarded me.

She sat down next to me on the brick steps, unaware or uncaring of their dusty nature. “Are you all right, Mellie?”

I sniffed. “Just a spring cold,” I said, adding a cough just in case the sniffing wasn’t enough to convince her.

“You told me it was allergies on the phone,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I think it might be both.”

She frowned at me. “What’s wrong, Mellie? Did you and Jack have a fight?”

Maybe it was the last twenty-four hours of misery and lack of sleep, but like a hairline crack in a dam during a flood, that nudge of compassion immediately destroyed all my composure, allowing every self-pitying fiber in my body to spill out onto my mother’s shoulder.

She held me tightly and patted my back the way I did to JJ when I tried to tell him that he couldn’t eat dirt. “Now, now, Mellie. It can’t be as bad as all that. Why don’t you tell me about it so we can figure this out together?”

“It’s Jack,” I sobbed. “And Jayne.”

She drew back and for a moment I thought she was upset about the makeup and tears saturating her sweater. “What about Jack and Jayne?”

“When I came home on Friday after walking in the park with Sophie and the babies, he and Jayne were in the foyer.” I stopped, hoping she would use her psychic abilities so I wouldn’t have to finish the story.

“Okay. They were in the foyer. And then what happened?”

I sighed. Why did this psychic gift never work when I needed it to? “I heard them. I think they were practicing golf swings or something—”

“In the house?” she interrupted. “You’d better not let Sophie know. She’d have a fit and probably plaster them both up in a wall.”

Fresh tears sprang to my eyes as I imagined Jack and Jayne stuck together for all eternity.

Ginette resumed patting my back. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was just trying to lighten the mood. So what happened next?”

“Well,” I sniffed, “I heard the sound of a club hitting a ball and then the ball rolling. Jack laughed at something and then . . .”

“And then?” She leaned forward.

“Nothing. Not a sound. Not a word or another laugh. Nothing. Silence.”

“And when you walked into the foyer, what was going on?”

I stared at my mother, stricken. “What do you mean? I didn’t want to walk in on them!”

She stared back at me for a long moment, blinking. “You didn’t go in to see what was going on?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to see them . . .”

“See them what, Mellie?”

I shrugged, not wanting to put my fears into words. “You know.”

Ginette sat back and took a deep breath. “Actually, I don’t. Because you didn’t go in to see for yourself and instead allowed your imagination to fill in the blanks.”

“But what else could they be doing besides . . . besides . . . hanky-panky?” I spat out, using Jack’s words that suddenly sounded worse than if I’d used the word “fornication.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, pretending to think. “Practicing their putting, maybe? Admiring a painting? Or maybe they’d walked into another room and you couldn’t hear them. There are dozens of things they could have been doing that could never be called ‘hanky-panky.’” She gave me a settling look. “So, what did Jack say when you asked him about it?”

I became suddenly very interested in studying my cuticles.

As if following my train of thought, she gently took hold of my chin with her thumb and index finger and forced me to look at her. “What did Jack say, Mellie? It’s been almost two days. Surely you’ve talked to him by now.”

I shook my head, dislodging a drip from the end of my nose. “I couldn’t. I’ve been hiding out in the guest room pretending I have the flu and sneaking into the nursery when Jayne isn’t around so I can see the children.”