Through an open window, p.6
Through an Open Window, page 6
“Listen,” Margaret said, bending over the table, her hands laced under her chin, “if you tell anybody what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it and tell them you drink. Plus, I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live, which I’ll admit might seem a blessing after you hear me out. See…” Margaret looked around the table and lowered her voice. “I’ve been…well, I think I’ve been…seeing my aunt Edith at night. I mean, I know I have. Right at the foot of my bed. I’ll fall asleep, then wake up around three, and there she’ll be, in her navy-blue dress and her pearls, just standing there looking at me with this long yellow envelope in her hands. She’ll hold the thing out like she wants me to take it, but when I reach for it, she just disappears.”
Harriet’s jaw had gone slack, a forkful of prosciutto wriggling like bait in midair. But now that she’d started, Margaret didn’t seem to be able to stop.
“It’s beginning to get to me, Harriet. I mean, it’s not like I’m scared or anything. I could never be scared of Aunt Edith. It’s only later, after the sun comes up, that I get all nervy about it. At first, I thought she was just, you know, just looking out for me or something. Checking in to see that I was all right now that Lawrence was gone, you know? I mean, I’ve heard of that happening, haven’t you? You know, like guardian angels? And she doesn’t come every night, stays for only a minute or two when she does. But on the nights when she doesn’t show up, I’ve started…well, I swear it’s almost worse. See, I’ve been having all these crystal-clear dreams. Or maybe visions? I don’t know. Scenes from the past, things I didn’t even know I remembered. And they’re as real as if I were living them all over again. I don’t know what’s weirder, Aunt Edith’s visits, or these dreams. But I mean, like I said, I don’t see her every night, just a couple of times a week or so, and…”
Harriet swallowed hard and let out a snort. “Your dead aunt’s just been dropping by ‘a couple of times a week,’ has she?”
Margaret waved at the air as though swatting a fly. “Just listen. See…I’ve been trying to figure out why this is happening and, I don’t know…lately I’ve been thinking that she might be trying to tell me something. Or remind me? And then I walk around all day long feeling like I’ve forgotten something important. You know that feeling? Like there’s something just out of your reach, that for the life of you, you just can’t seem to remember. And then one night”—Margaret poured more prosecco into her glass—“one night, about four months ago, she found me this house, sitting on a beach someplace, all white sand and palm trees. Anyway, I say Aunt Edith found it because I sure wasn’t looking for it, but I opened up the computer this one night and just seemed to go straight to it. And I printed out a picture of the place and it…well…” Margaret paused, deciding to omit the part about the picture showing up on her refrigerator for three nights in a row without her putting it there. “And anyway…now, I can’t get that house out of my mind. I can’t find it anymore, so I guess it sold. Hell, maybe it never existed. But I think about it every day. I swear, Harriet, it’s started to feel like homesickness. And I’ve begun to wonder if maybe Aunt Edith is trying to, maybe, you know, shoo me away or something? Get me to move? I mean, Lawrence is everywhere in my house. Maybe Aunt Edith is just afraid I’m going to dry up and blow away if I stay there all by myself with those memories. Maybe she wants me to make a move while I still can. What do you think?”
Harriet swallowed hard, blinking at Margaret, silent.
Margaret met her gaze, then let out a weak laugh and ran her hands through her hair. “I know. I know! I sound crazy. But I swear to you, Harriet, I see her as clearly as I see you right now.” She stared over at the fountain across the street in the square, sunlight glittering on the silver water. She could feel Harriet looking at her. “Nobody I know remembers Aunt Edith,” she said, softly. “I never had a brother or sister, you know. I guess Lawrence filled that role for me growing up. We were like family from the first moment we met. We were lucky we fell in love. But now…Well, it would be nice to have someone who remembers your past. Like a puzzle piece that completes you. When you’re the last one with memories, it’s like trying to hold on to hot sand. My kids have no idea how lucky they are to have one another. And it’s something they take completely for granted. You could understand it with Mouse, I suppose, being ten years older than the boys. But Lawrie and Tom act like strangers most of the time. As far as I know, they hardly ever talk to each other unless something comes up that they can’t avoid. Like this dinner tonight. My first birthday since Lawrence died. I know they think they have to do something special.”
Harriet sat quietly for a moment, then whispered, “I don’t suppose you’ve told them about any of this.”
“The kids?” said Margaret, turning. “Lord, no. Can you imagine? I’d be better off telling them I’d seen Elvis in the Piggly Wiggly.” She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Kids don’t like it when you veer off into unknown territory. You remember Mona Faye Hitchcock, don’t you? Remember that summer after her husband died, and she took the grandkids up to Splash Country? Slipped out of her inner tube on Big Bear Plunge? Sank to the bottom like a rock, and when they fished her out, she was speaking in tongues. Lifelong Lutheran, and she came out of there babbling like a Pentecostal. Drove straight home, joined the Apostolic Church the very next Sunday—you remember, that low-slung cinder-block building that used to be out on the highway near Simeon—started wearing those long sack dresses, and didn’t cut her hair again. Total transformation. Everybody was shocked, but especially her two daughters. That woman died six years ago, and you know as well as I do, Harriet, neither one of those girls even acts like they remember her name. As for my three, what do you think they’d do if I up and told them I’d been seeing the ghost of Aunt Edith? I’ll tell you what they’d do. They’d slap me in Delmar Gardens before you could blink a blue eye. Laugh all you want to, but there are some things you just don’t tell your kids.”
Harriet, who’d begun to snicker at the mental image of Mona Faye Hitchcock in her inner tube, was now laughing out loud.
“I’m glad somebody finds this funny,” said Margaret, wryly. “Believe you me, when it’s the middle of the night and you’re sitting up in bed asking your long-dead great-aunt what she wants to tell you, it doesn’t exactly feel like the most comical thing in the world.”
Slowly, Harriet’s laughter lost steam. Picking up a corner of her napkin, she blotted her watering eyes, then studied Margaret for a long moment, frowning.
When she finally spoke, her voice didn’t rise above a whisper. “Let me tell you something,” she said, pushing her plate away and folding her hands on the table. She glanced down at Gatsby, who’d begun to snore, then back up at Margaret. “Before she died, my mother told me something similar that happened to my daddy back when his father died.” Harriet paused, dropped her voice, and Margaret leaned in a bit closer. “This was before I was born, back when they still lived in Savannah. Well, the two men never had a good relationship, and they’d had a big row, as usual. Last thing Daddy said to his father was something smart and then the old man dropped dead in his kitchen the very next day. And Daddy couldn’t get past it. Mama said he started getting angry at the littlest things. Couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat. And that wasn’t like him.” Harriet reached for her water glass and took a sip, her eyes still fastened on Margaret. “Then one night…Mama never forgot it…Daddy shook her awake around three in the morning. It was December. She said the Christmas lights were on at the house next door, a whole bunch of colors coming in through the window and shining all over Daddy’s face. He told her he’d woken up and seen his father, sitting in the chair across their bedroom. Daddy said he sat up, and the old man just smiled at him and said, It’s all right, Son. That’s all, just It’s all right, Son. And then, Daddy said, his father just sort of melted away. Mother said Daddy started to cry like a baby. I mean, well, you would, wouldn’t you?” Harriet paused again, eyebrows raised. “But she said Daddy was different after that. Said he just seemed to stop worrying so much about things. And he stayed like that from then on, like he had his eyes on something level. He was one of the most contented men I ever knew.” Harriet sat up straighter and smiled. “So, don’t you go thinking Aunt Edith’s not real.”
When she’d been little, Margaret had liked to stand in the doorway of her bedroom, pressing her arms against the wooden frame as hard as she could. If she stayed like that for about five minutes, then suddenly stepped out into the hall, her arms would fly up into the air without her control, as weightless as a bird’s wings. As she listened to Harriet talk about what her own father had seen, Margaret remembered that feeling of uncontrolled lightness. She felt it inside of her now. The two women sat quietly looking at each other until the waiter came to take their plates away.
“You always make me feel better,” said Margaret. She shook her head slowly. “You know, there was this quote Lawrence always loved…What was it? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than you can shake a stick at?’ Something like that, I think. Anyway, I guess he was right.”
Harriet closed her eyes tight, holding up a forefinger. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I had to memorize that in school. Way back when. Hamlet. Funny thing is, he was also talking about ghosts.”
5
Emlynn
Verbena Apothecary always closed a few hours early on the first Saturday in October. This was a special day for Emlynn, the day she created the Halloween display in the big bay window that faced the sidewalk on Wesleyan Square. She looked forward to it all year.
She’d said goodbye to the last customer twenty minutes ago and shooed her two employees out the back door not long after that. Now she dimmed the lights, put the teakettle on the hot plate, turned up the music, and lit another of the coffee-scented candles that were her signature fragrance for fall. She hated the more ubiquitous smell of pumpkin spice. Here at Verbena Apothecary, it was always jasmine for spring, gardenia for summer, Fraser fir for the Christmas season, and the smell of warm espresso as soon as the leaves started to turn.
Emlynn had been eleven when she saw Practical Magic for the first time, just on the cusp of that age when girls are so often prone to transformative phases, their imaginations ensnared by one or another of society’s cultural pied pipers: some old, some new, some eternal. Madonna, Britney Spears, Jane Eyre. But for eleven-year-old Emily Lynn Cates, nothing was more impressive than that sunny movie of 1998, with its beautiful witches in their grand old Victorian house by the sea. She’d wanted to look like the Owens sisters, dress like them, be them.
While realistic enough to know she could never jump from the roof of her house with nothing more than an opened umbrella to guarantee a soft landing—as the witches in the movie had so impressively done—Emlynn longed to get as close as she could to their magical fictional lives while keeping her feet on the ground. And then, “They’re not really witches you know,” her mother had called out over the hiss and sputter of the steam iron one day while Emlynn was rewatching the movie for the umpteenth time. “Those girls there in those black dresses. They’re just actors, Emmy. Actors get to be different people all the time.” And it didn’t take long for Emlynn to completely alter her goals.
She left her parents in New Orleans and moved to Atlanta after high school. With its tempting tax breaks designed to lure the film industry out of its usual locations, this historic Southern city was well on its way to earning its eventual nickname of Y’allywood, and work was plentiful for a leggy brunette with a not-too-beautiful face.
Emlynn had been happy to do the more menial jobs. Getting coffee, mopping sets, and once, babysitting a recalcitrant llama who’d been hired as comic relief on a dystopian drama that mercifully never made it to air. As a thank-you for maintaining her good humor throughout that long day, the director had given her a small speaking part, which caught the eyes of those best poised to pull strings, and before she knew it, she had a regular role on a popular detective show that earned her enough money to save up for what she’d since decided she really wanted to do: open a shop just like the one in Practical Magic.
Emlynn poured herself a cup of peppermint tea and had just placed one arm through the handle of the wicker basket full of cleaning supplies when she heard the clock on the courthouse begin to chime four o’clock. She’d nearly forgotten! Hurriedly, she went back through the shop and straight to the door. Opening it, she stuck her head out and looked down the sidewalk toward Epiphanies Bookshop. Five minutes from now, the impromptu parade would begin, just as it did every week. Sipping her tea, Emlynn leaned against the doorframe and waited.
Story hour started at three every Saturday. At two minutes past four, the door to Epiphanies would open and the line of toddlers would emerge, swaying and weaving like a cooked noodle, and bookended by mothers leading the way toward Rocky’s Road Ice Cream Shop on the corner. Sometimes they stopped as a group to look at the dollhouse in Emlynn’s front window and she’d step outside to say hello to them all. She knew most of these kids by first name. And she longed to be one of these mothers.
As she stood in the doorway greeting today’s happy procession, Emlynn saw her own child in her head as clearly as she saw little Sergio Harper in his bright blue sweater, one hand holding a picture book close to his chest, the other held tight by his mother, Enid, who smiled broadly at Emlynn as she went past. Her own little boy would be tall, Emlynn thought, like her. But he’d have Lawrie’s blue eyes and that handsome cleft in his chin. As the line of toddlers made their way down the sidewalk, it occurred to Emlynn that Lawrie might possibly be right. Maybe it was time they got married.
She’d met Lawrie Elliot one blistering Sunday morning in Atlanta when, convinced by heat and humidity to abandon her regular run, she’d stopped into Revolution Doughnuts for an iced latte and whatever decadent treat she considered most tempting. Comprised of sweaty customers clad in ensembles clearly chosen for comfort rather than style, the line to the counter was long and appeared to be unmoving. It took Emlynn a short second to see what the holdup was.
A young man stood at the counter, two Kung Fu Panda backpacks slung over his shoulder, one eye on a table outside where a couple of tired-looking kids sat, clearly up to their eyes in an argument. A large stuffed panda bear was equidistant between them, looking damp and forlorn in the blistering heat. “I’m sorry,” said Lawrie, his hands deep in his pockets. “I can’t find my wallet.” He patted his shirt pocket and frowned, clearly flustered. “It’s my nephew’s tenth birthday tomorrow and we’ve…we’ve been to the zoo. I…I know I had it when I bought these stupid things.” He let the backpacks fall to the floor, where they landed with a soft thud. “Mouse warned me not to do all this in one day,” he said, his color rising. “She told me they’d get too tired, and then they’d get cranky. Mouse. That’s my sister. I guess none of us expected it to be so damn hot today.” Lawrie let out a self-conscious laugh that was pointedly returned by no one, then, twisting around, finally managed to locate his wallet in his back pocket. He tossed it onto the counter with more force than was necessary, and the thing sailed past its target to land at the feet of the poker-faced teenager who’d stood mutely staring all this time, waiting to be paid.
“Shit,” Lawrie had said, louder than he should have, and Emlynn, spurred into action by his plight, had moved quickly and quietly to the front of the line, picking up the backpacks, taking the sackful of donuts off the counter, and motioning for Lawrie to follow her. They’d both paused at the door, looking out at the arguing kids.
“Obviously, I should’ve bought two of those stuffed bears,” he’d said, smiling down at Emlynn weakly. “They’re gonna fight over that thing all the way home, aren’t they?”
His eyes were the color of sea glass and right then, at that moment, she’d known, as sure as she was of the sunrise, that this man was her future. This was the man for her. It had been months before she told Lawrie, of course, but by then he was equally certain himself. They’d been together for over eight years.
Having always longed for roots that ran deep, Emlynn understood Lawrie’s desire to return to his hometown after he finished school. She was happy to relocate to Wesleyan. She’d loved the town at first sight. She and Lawrie settled into their two-bedroom Tudor in a leafy old neighborhood known as The Glade, where she set about creating the garden she’d always wanted, one full of sunflowers, moonflowers, and thyme. The house was cozy, which suited them both, and most important to Emlynn, it had a small sunny bedroom upstairs overlooking the garden, with sloped ceilings and two dormer windows. The moment she stepped inside, Emlynn had known, when the time was right, this would be the perfect room for a nursery.
She still did a few plays and commercials up in Atlanta, but five years ago, when the old paint store on the square went out of business, Emlynn finally found the perfect place to realize her childhood dream. She’d christened the shop Verbena Apothecary, just like the one in the movie, and with its glass-fronted cabinets full of colorful bottles of imported bath salts, hand creams, lotions, and balms, its counters decorated with clear antique cloches, and its many vases of white paper flowers, anyone would be hard-pressed to see any difference.
Everyone in Wesleyan loved the windows of Verbena Apothecary, and Emlynn had Margaret to thank. Before opening, she’d given Lawrie’s parents a tour of the place, telling them both all about the movie that had inspired its purchase, and Margaret had cocked her head to one side, then looked over at Lawrence, grinning. “I might have just the thing,” she’d said.
