Page 74 of Old Flames

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Leo wasn’t around at breakfast. Jules found a bouquet of fresh-cut gardenias at a table reserved on her behalf. A lovely gesture, though she would have traded the flowers for his company. No one to blame but myself, she thought. Before she’d left him last night, she’d redrawn a boundary that he was intent on respecting.

Why was she so quick to shut the door? Intimacy was scarier than the ghost in the garden.

Rather than sit among the anonymous faces of the new guests, Jules requested a vase for the flowers and took her coffee and croissants to her room. Her laptop was set up at the window seat. She was ready for the day’s work, but first she replied to a string of text messages from Vicky, who’d made it to Arizona. This time her grandmother hadn’t greeted her with hostility. She hadn’t greeted her at all, in fact. The elderly woman no longer responded to voice or touch. It didn’t stop Vicky from spending hours at her bedside, reading to her from her favorite gossip magazines. The mental image alone had Jules feeling low.

Outside her window springtime raged on. Last night she spent thirty minutes in the garden, waiting, before giving up. Looking at it now, the garden was just a garden. Its allure was missing, the impulse to discover its mysteries gone.

Nothing called her name.

Jules got to work and, around one, ventured outdoors for lunch. After a bite, she restocked her travel-size toiletries at a pharmacy located steps from the literary society’s headquarters on Eaton Street. It would have been rude to walk past it. She decided to stop by and say hello.

Daphne was hanging out at the front desk, having a laugh with the young receptionist and snacking on a bag of plantain chips, looking relaxed, the lecture series now behind her. She screeched when Jules walked through the door. “Goodness!” she exclaimed, laughing. “Do my eyes deceive me?”

Jules slipped off her sunglasses. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, lady, step into my office!”

Her office was located on the second floor. On their way up Daphne asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Would you believe me if I said I missed my flight and returned to get some writing done?”

“I wouldn’t,” Daphne said, categorically. “I’d probably think you’re having an affair.”

“That’s fair, I guess.”

“Have you run into Leo? He’s still at The Aurora.”

“So am I,” Jules said. “And yes, I’ve run into him.”

Daphne laughed louder this time. “You’re not beating the illicit affair allegations!”

The office was small and cluttered with books, pamphlets, orchids on the windowsill, and postcards tacked to a corkboard. Among all that artful mess, a framed photo of her late fiancé sat on a bookcase alongside a jar candle with the image of Christ, his loving heart bursting with light and flames. She recalled Daphne saying she was raised Catholic. Jules wasn’t raised anything. Her mother broke away from a nondenominational church when she left home. Jules considered the candle and thought it might be helpful to have a set of spiritual principles to navigate these tricky times.

“My mother put that candle there,” Daphne said, “right next to my favorite photo of Felix. Now it’s a sort of shrine. She’s more devastated than I am, to be honest. Mostly because I’ve sworn off dating, given up on marriage, and have no intention of raising children on my own. So, in essence, I’ve robbed her of any more future grandchildren. My brother has a son. Now that he’s divorced, it’s not likely he’ll have more kids.”

“Is your mother a devout Catholic?” Jules asked.

“Vehemently. It’s for the best. All that volunteering keeps her busy, and I suppose it gives her hope.”

“How about you?” Jules asked.

“I’m exhausted, and slightly over it,” Daphne admitted. “I want to live my life without concern of an afterlife. Do you know what I mean? I want to be free to make mistakes and not worry that every misstep is a step forward on the path to hell and damnation.”

“I get it.”

Jules may not have a strict religious code, but she believed in an afterlife of sorts. She’d never spent much time thinking of heaven or hell. She’d assumed her mother had gone to a “better place.” If that place was heaven, amazing. If it was the cosmos and her soul burned bright in the night sky, even better. It was possible that Ruby was reincarnated as someone new with a whole new life ahead of her. Generally, though, she hoped people of good faith would reunite in some version of paradise, and lovers would find one another to finally live out the promises this world had failed to keep.

“I can’t believe you’ve stayed on at The Aurora,” Daphne said, returning to the topic that interested her most. “A friend of mine manages a B and B on Fleming Street. Please call me if you need to get out of there in a hurry.”

“Why?” Jules asked. She’d been the inn’s greatest advocate. “Do you admit it’s haunted?”

Daphne sat at the edge of her desk. “I don’t know if I’d use that exact word.”

“It is haunted,” Jules affirmed. “Ayesha heard knocks on her door. Vicky had dreams. I . . . might’ve seen things.”

“Sebastien? Mathis? Leo?”