The Last House on the Street(52)

Brenda nods as if my story makes sense to her. “Garner didn’t die right away like that,” she says. “I lost him in the emergency room.”

Ellie suddenly opens her eyes. “I’ll never understand why you called Uncle Byron for help instead of an ambulance,” she says.

“You don’t think rationally at a time like that, Ellie.” Brenda speaks quietly, but I see the muscles in her throat contract. She looks at me and I nod. I know what she means. You become a different person in a moment of panic, if only for a few seconds.

“Did you ever remarry?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Garner was the love of my life,” she says. “And I…” She licks her lips. “The stress was too much. I lost the baby I was carrying. So, I’ve been alone since. All my adult life. No husband. No children.”

I feel sympathy for her, but I know I won’t let her future be mine. I still have Rainie. And I’ll meet someone, someday. It’s hard to imagine falling in love with anyone but Jackson, but I’m hopeful that it will happen.

“I can’t believe you moved into the house where your husband died,” Brenda says. “I could never do that.”

Her words hurt, they’re so abrupt. “Well, we designed it together so it’s very special to me,” I said. “There’s so much of Jackson … my husband … in it. We were living with my dad for a while, but once the house was finished, I—”

“You should go back to your father’s,” Brenda says. “Take it from me, sweetie. You need that support. You may not realize it now, but if I were you, I’d sell that pretty new house and let Reed take care of you. It’d be good for both of you.”

“I’m not leaving,” I say, with more strength in the words than I feel. “And anyhow, my father’s moving into a condo, so I no longer have that option.” I think of my father’s letter to Jackson, warning us about the location, and the crazy lady in my office who said the trees would suck the breath out of us, and Ellie telling me to take the tree house down. It seems like nobody thinks I should live in Shadow Ridge.

“Well, enough of this,” Ellie says. She gets to her feet and crosses the room to shut the windows. She sounds bored, as though she thinks her friend should have moved on long ago. I think she’s tired of Brenda’s story. Maybe she’s heard it one too many times over the decades in letters and phone calls and thinks that Brenda has wallowed long enough in her grief. There’s something between these two women besides friendship, I think. Something old and prickly.

Right now, though, I feel responsible for bringing the conversation down. “I need to run.” I touch Ellie’s arm. “I’ll let myself out,” I say. “This was wonderful.”

“We’ll do it again,” Ellie offers, surprising me. Despite how well our session went, I still don’t get the feeling that she likes me all that much.

“I’d love that,” I say. I head to the door, but Brenda speaks up again.

“My Garner was your father’s best friend,” she says.

I turn to her. “Your husband?”

She nods. “They were best friends. We used to double-date all the time. Ellie and Reed, Garner and me.”

I look at Ellie, almost accusingly. Why hadn’t she said anything?

She shrugs. “It was a very long time ago,” she says in a way that immediately closes the subject. Suddenly, she looks exhausted, the vibrant yoga teacher gone, and I know it’s truly time for me to go.





Chapter 24



ELLIE


1965

By the time I sat down to breakfast the morning after the cross burning, Mr. Dawes and his two sons were ready to leave for the field. He looked at me with tired eyes, red from the smoke.

“You can’t stay here no longer,” he said.

“I know,” I answered. “I’m so sorry.” I’d apologized over and over the night before for bringing danger to them and their home. I’d barely slept, holding GiGi and Sally tightly against me, thinking of how much worse it could have been. All the “what-if”s terrified me.

I had no way to let anyone know what had happened until Curry and Win came to pick me up to take me to the school for our Saturday meeting. I watched the two of them rush out of the beige SCOPE van, Curry stopping to examine the smoldering cross, while Win leaped up the steps to me.

“Is everyone all right?” He looked past me into the house as if he could see Mrs. Dawes and the children inside.

“Yes.” I nodded. “But I can’t stay here.”

He went inside to speak with Mrs. Dawes, while I carried my things to the van. I tossed them on the back seat, then got into the front seat to wait for Win and Curry. That’s when I thought to myself, You automatically got into the front seat, even though Win was in the front seat when he and Curry arrived. You automatically expect him to ride in the back. Yes, I did. The South had raised me. It was time for the South to let me go. I got out of the van and moved to the long middle seat.

Curry and Win returned to the van, Win getting into the front seat without batting an eye. “Greg has to find you a new place to stay,” he said to me over his shoulder.

“Did any of the other SCOPE workers have a problem last night?” I asked.