“No,” he said abruptly. He drew in his breath. “What I meant was that it’s not really suitable for a family or full-time living. I wouldn’t want to force my wife and daughter to live there for any amount of time.”
“He’s right,” Veronica said. “I’ve only been there once. Right after we were married. It was built in the thirties and I don’t think it’s been updated since. It’s just one room—and no door on the bathroom.” I heard the smile in her words. “He’s never invited me back, and I’m okay with that. It’s his man cave, I suppose.”
She turned in her seat to face Michael. “I guess if worse comes to worse, you could sleep on your fishing boat and Lindsey and I could take the cabin.” I could tell she was trying to lighten the mood, but Michael didn’t respond.
Veronica faced forward again, her voice straining to keep it light. “He named the boat the Omega Three because it’s a fishing boat. Get it? I thought it was pretty clever.”
“Very.” Trying to spare her the burden of carrying on the labored conversation, I said, “Do you two get to spend much time on the boat?”
“Oh, no.” She forced a lighthearted laugh. “The Omega Three is an extension of Michael’s man cave. I’ve been on it only once—that same trip when I stayed in the cabin. Let’s just say that I’m happy to allow him his privacy on his fishing weekends. Maybe we should look for a house with a deepwater dock so we could keep the boat nearby and Michael can teach Lindsey and me how to fish.”
Michael said nothing, and the car descended into an uncomfortable silence. I usually didn’t listen to the radio with clients in the car, but I thought it necessary in this case. I turned it on and the car was immediately flooded with the mind-jarring repetitive ha ha ha background refrain of “O Superman.”
* * *
? ? ?
The disconnected landline phone in my bedroom rang at three a.m., ruthlessly shaking me from a dream in which Jack and I were standing in the garden by the fountain, surrounded by friends and family. It reminded me of our wedding, except I was wearing the red dress instead of my wedding gown, and Beau was there strumming his guitar. Nola stood next to him, singing, and by the third ring of the phone, I realized she was voicing the refrain from “O Superman.”
I stumbled out of bed, trailing blankets and a grumpy General Lee across the room to pick up the phone’s receiver. “Hello?” I said, my frequent conversations with my deceased grandmother no longer making me feel foolish speaking into a disconnected phone.
The distant noise coming through the earpiece made me think of the black nothingness of outer space, the hollow echo the sound of stars spinning through empty inkiness.
Nola.
The sound of my grandmother’s voice came through more as a breath than a word, but I understood her just the same.
“What about Nola?”
Nola, she said again, the one word dripping icicles down my back.
I closed my eyes, waiting for her to speak again, feeling myself spinning with the stars, unable to stop.
She’s in danger.
I gripped the phone tighter. “From what?”
Only the occasional crackle of static came through the phone. I waited for a long moment, my knuckles hurting from my tight grasp on the receiver. I was about to hang up when I heard her again.
The tall man.
There was a click, and then a dial tone, letting me know that the phone call was over.
I quickly slipped on my robe and padded in my thick sleeping socks down to Nola’s bedroom, General Lee in my wake as if he needed to check on his big sister, too.
I partially opened the door and peeked inside. Nola lay on her side, facing the door, Porgy and Bess curled up against her in spoon position. They both looked up at me as General Lee got up on his hind legs to make sure everything was all right. Nola didn’t stir as I lifted the older dog onto the mattress and he snuggled in with the two pups.
Nola sighed in her sleep, a sweet smile settling on her face as she draped an arm around the three dogs. I watched her, wondering if I should head down the hallway and wake Jack to tell him about the phone call. The thought had barely crossed my mind before I dismissed it, knowing I’d be treading into dangerous territory.
Instead, I curled up in the oversized club chair Greco had insisted Nola needed, and waited until dawn broke and I knew that Nola was safe. For now.
* * *
? ? ?
I had a hard time staying awake as Jack drove us to the Charleston Museum on Meeting Street for our meeting with Mandy after lunch. Even the discussion of the previous night’s phone call from my grandmother wasn’t stimulating enough to keep me awake.
“We’re here,” Jack said, gently shaking my shoulder.
I glanced up to see that he’d parked in the small lot behind the brown brick museum in apparently the last remaining spot. “You are the luckiest parker in the world,” I said, unclicking my seat belt.
“I usually am, but I can’t take credit for this one. Mandy said she’d reserve a spot for me and left a cone in the middle of the space. You weren’t aware of me leaving the car and removing because you were snoring like a chain saw.”
“I don’t snore.”
He raised his eyebrows. “How would you know if you snored or not?”
“How would you?” I shot back, regretting the words as soon as they’d left my mouth.
“Touché,” he said quietly, his smile slipping.
We exited the minivan and were met at the front door of the museum by a pretty redhead in her early thirties whom Jack introduced as Mandy Reeves. She wore a cinched-in minidress that advertised the fact that she’d never given birth to children, much less twins. Although Jayne’s prescribed torture of running most days had helped me shed most of my baby weight, my waist would never be the same.