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“You can see us?”
Chapter 10
Chadwick hadn’t spoken to anyone but his wife and two children for a great many years. Just knowing that the man in front of him could not only see them, but could speak to them as well, was more than he could have hoped for. But he had to concentrate on what he was saying rather than just be happy for a time.
“We own this home that you’re living in. Can you tell me if you have lived here since it was built?” Chadwick told the younger man t
hat he’d lived where the foundation was. Now the house was all different. “I’m sorry about that. I am. But the house has been sold now, so if you’d tell me what happened or why you haunt here, maybe I can figure something out for you.”
“Humans walk right through us, like we ain’t even there.” Bryson told him that they couldn’t see or hear them, or they’d never do that. “If you say so. Once, about fifty years or so ago, this here man came around with all these machines and tried his best to run us off. We were here first, dagnabbit.”
“I’m sure that they never thought of anyone being here other than other humans. I’m sorry about that.” Chadwick liked this young man. He didn’t yell or scream about things. “What happened to you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“We took sick. Thought that since we didn’t leave the house or nothing, we’d be all right when the pox came around. First my children, then my wife. I died too when there weren’t no one here to care for me.” He looked over at his wife and smiled. “‘Tisn’t her fault that she took ill and died. We never thought about the people working for us around the farm. We didn’t do much in the way of talking to them, but they got us sick all the same. Took out a lot of people, that sickness did.”
“Yes, I’ve heard about it. I’m very sorry for your loss. But, here is what I’d like to know. Can we work something out between your family and mine so that we can have people living here that are going to be down on their luck, or just lost everything due to fire or other things?” He asked if they meant darkies. “We don’t say that word any longer, Chadwick. We’re all one person as far as me and my family are concerned. They’re just people that are needing a hand up.”
“I think I kinda knew that. I’ve been seeing them around. Not just working for people in their homes, but even at jobs like regular people.” He might have been embarrassed had he any skin to redden. “I just don’t know what to talk about with people anymore. They’re all different than we are.”
“I’m sure that there are a great many things that are different than when you were alive. Would you have a problem with having people live in this house?” He asked him what would happen if he didn’t want anyone coming to the house. “Then I’m afraid that I’ll have to have you banished. You know that I can, don’t you?”
“I know that you can, but I don’t think you’re really aware that you can. You seem to be fobbing me off on a few things. I don’t cotton to being lied to, sir. I don’t care if you’re better than me or not.” Bryson told him that he promised he wasn’t lying. “Then why you telling me something when we both know that you can do whatever it is you want?”
“I’m not lying, but I am unsure of things that I can do now. But I wasn’t talking about me banishing you, but the people that we hired to have you removed if you didn’t cooperate with us.” A man with equipment came into the room and started taking things out of the box. “He’s the man that will do it. He has the magic to do so.”
“I don’t want to be banished. I want to live in my dadburn home. I bet you have a nice house that you live in. What if I were to go there and haunt you around?” Bryson asked him if he’d do that. “No. I can’t do that, and you know it. I can’t leave the house, and neither can my family. We’re stuck here. But that don’t mean that I want to be kicked out either.”
“I’m only asking you to not scare the people staying here. I need for them to have a place to live that doesn’t frighten their children and give them bad dreams.” Chadwick thought that over and looked at his lovely wife. “You can stay here for as long as you wish. But I need for you to be nice. Can you do that for me?”
“We can. But we don’t like being forced into something that we don’t like.” His wife told him to be nice. “I am being nice to him. Didn’t you hear him, Martha? He wants to banish us if we don’t play in the garden like he wants us to.”
“Would it be so bad to live here with people that don’t have anything left, Chadwick? Have others around that we can watch and maybe take under our wings when they need it? I surely do miss having someone in the kitchen making all them pretty smells. Not to mention, our children having someone to watch over. They’d love that too.” Chadwick looked at his two sons, both of them dead because he’d not been able to keep them safe. “You don’t go on thinking like that, you hear me? I will not have you blaming yourself for us all dying, because you didn’t see into the future and see that no matter what you did, and you did a lot, we was still going to die.”
“I should have moved you out of the city.” She just waved him of. “I might have been able to save you all had I just taken you to the old cabin at the back of the property.”
“What do you think would have happened to us in that cabin when winter set in? We’d of been found frozen like that pond that was there, with no one the wiser where we’d gone. No, you tried and it didn’t work. At least we’re all together, and not spread out all over the ground like the Hendersons were. They were just buried in a mass grave not even close to their loved ones. I didn’t want that either. You go on and tell that man that we’ll behave for them. Just so long as you’re here with us, we’ll do what he wants. If’n he banishes us, Chadwick, there ain’t no telling where we might go. I want to be with you and our boys.”
He did too, and turned to look at Bryson again. “You promise me that we can live here for the rest of our days, and I’ll be nice to everyone that comes here. My family, they want to do that too. No more scaring off humans just because they walk through us once in a while.”
“I would like for you to scare off people that don’t belong here. There might be women here with their children that have run from their husbands or boyfriends. They hurt them. Sometimes if they can, they’ll kill them when they find them.” Chadwick said that wasn’t right. “No, it’s not. But they have this thing about them that makes them think that they’re better and smarter than a woman, and show them with their fists or even guns.”
“I heard tell of that once. A man, he was beating his wife all the time when he thought that she was having affairs. She wasn’t. Just working hard to keep food on their table and money to keep the fire lit, while he just sat round on his bottom and cussed about every little thing she did. He killed her because she would go to houses to clean them for a few coins. Jealousy is what they called it, but me and my Martha, we knew that he was just a lazy man that hurt them because he was bigger. I don’t cotton to that. No sir.” Bryson told him that he and his family didn’t either. “All right. You come around and tell me when you got one of them families in the house, and we’ll keep them safe. We have learned a few things since the pox took us. Heck fire, we’ll keep them all safe if you tell me what we’re hiding them from.”
“I’ll do that. And I can’t thank you enough.”
When Bryson turned to the other man still setting up and told him he was no longer needed, Chadwick was thrilled. He didn’t want to be banished any more than he’d wanted to die all those years ago. But today, he could do something about it.
Bryson told him that there would be carpenters in the house for a little while. He asked him if there was anything they could remember that the men and women working on the house might find. Chadwick said that he didn’t know of anything when his wife reminded him of their money.
“I got me a little cash around here. Some of my wife’s things too. If you could see that they’re put someplace safe too, I’d appreciate that.” Bryson asked him if he wanted them back when the house was finished. Chadwick looked at his wife when she spoke. Shaking his head at the niceness of his wife, he turned back to Bryson. “Martha, she says for you to use it to help these here people out that lost their homes. It might be a little bit by what they have now, but it would be nice for us to be able to help them a little too. I got me a Bible around in the walls of the dining room too. Maybe you could put a new one or two around if you sell off ours. We got no people left that would want it now.”
After Chadwick showed him which panel he’d hidden the things behind, Bryson went out to his car to get a prybar. In no time at all, not only did he find his wife’s things, but a few things that he’d forgotten about—the family silver, a gift from his momma when he’d married Martha.
“You go on and sell that too. Not sure if it’s worth much, but you can surely use whatever it brings you.” Bryson ran his hand over the big Bible that he’d gotten when his momma had passed away. “It’s sad, don’t you think, that a family can work so hard to get something special, only to have it worth not much more than spit?”
“You’d be surprised at how much we’ll get for these pieces, Chadwick. And this home, it’ll be called the Chadwick Home, and known as that for as long as it stands. Then we’ll just build again when we need to. Thank you for this.” Nodding at the big man, he waved him off when he said that he was indebted to him. “I’ll come back and visit you and your family often, Chadwick. I think that I’ve made myself a good friend today, and I’d like to see that friendship grow.”
After Bryson left, Chadwick gathered his family around him and held them. He couldn’t touch anyone else, but he would hold his family every chance he got. They were his life, the reason that he had worked every day of his years. They were all that mattered to him from that side of life to this side of death.
