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“We have a bike rider in the house,” Cole announces proudly. If you asked him, he’d tell you we named our daughter after his favorite car. Me, I’d tell you the truth. She’s named after my favorite character in Steel Magnolias. How we ended up together is anyone’s guess and also what seemed like a forgone conclusion. I hadn’t meant to get pregnant, but I hadn’t not meant to either.
When I told him, the first words out of his mouth were as I expected. Marry me.
I hadn’t wanted to hear any of it. “I feel like this is the same conversation we keep having over and over.”
“Great.” He ignored me completely. “So? What do you say? You wanna come live out in the woods with me?”
“What, like happily ever after?”
“Probably not like that. But I think we’d do okay.”
“Magnolia House is my home, Cole. Always has been. Always will be.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But now it’s two against one.” He laid his hand on my stomach and looked up at me with that charming smile of his. “The way it’s looking, the odds are stacked against you.”
“I never perform better under any other condition.”
He laughed. “Now, that I believe.”
As the sun sets, our daughter looks up at me and tugs at my hand, anchoring me in the present. “Daddy says we can take the training wheels off tomorrow.”
“You’re still getting the hang of it, honey. I think we’d better give it a minute.”
“But,” she pouts. “I want to show Uncle Davey.”
“Davis,” I say, patting her head. “Uncle Davis.”
“He’s coming.” She looks at me suspiciously, as though perhaps I’ve forgotten. “Tomorrow? Remember, you said.”
“That’s right.”
“Is it tomorrow yet?” She has asked this nearly every hour on the hour for the past several days. At seven, her concept of time is still a little shaky.
“Almost.”
Sometimes, usually at night, Shelby asks me to tell her about Uncle Johnny. I usually defer to Cole, but I think about Johnny a lot. It’s hard not to. Business is booming again. We rebranded, though not intentionally. It has been said and written that two lovers haunt the room they were murdered in. The story draws a lot of attention. Most of it unwanted.
That room is locked off. We do not rent that room, not ever.
But it doesn’t stop people from asking or from trying.
As for it being haunted, that’s an interesting subject. I am haunted. So who’s to say? And I will admit that strange things do sometimes occur. Sometimes in the dead of night, I wake to the sound of a woman laughing. And while time has faded the memory at its edges, I do know that laugh and the first time I heard it, sitting at my kitchen table on a warm summer’s day.
Davis was indicted on murder charges. They sentenced him to seventeen years, but with good behavior, he’s out after seven.
I’m both hopeful and dreading seeing him. Our relationship is a bit strained on account that I wouldn’t mortgage Magnolia House to the hilt to pay for his defense. Davis made his bed, and he had to lie in it.
And I knew that not only would I not allow anything to take this house from me, but that when the dust settled, Davis would need a place to call home.
So when he called two days ago from the road and asked if I minded if he headed this way upon his release, I couldn’t say anything other than yes.
He arrives just after lunch. I watch him from the kitchen window as he steps out of the car. He looks older than the last time I saw him, but has more pep in his step. Being a free man has that effect, I’m sure.
I visited him in prison as much as I could, but then Shelby came along, and now there will be another baby soon. I have a business to run, and seeing him in an orange jumpsuit was harder than I thought. Eventually, I came up with enough excuses, and eventually he stopped asking.
I make my way from the kitchen to the front door on shaky footing. I don’t know what to expect. Through the screen door, I see a hint of golden hair and my breath catches.
As I step out onto the porch, I open my mouth to call for Shelby and Cole, but nothing comes out.
