Give Up the Ghost Read online

  Chapter 5

  I woke to a brilliant morning, cool and breezy, sun sending sparkles across the water as if the lake winked at me in rapid succession. I’m back to feeling nauseated, credit it to the horrid dream I had the night before and not my fall from grace in imbibing Oreos and coffee. I was doing the laundry at the rear of the houseboat and suddenly noticed movement in the woods. Instead of Gorton waiting for me there, it was Dwayne, head back, hands on his hips, laughing for all the world.

  I bolted awake, sweat pouring down my cheeks, then quickly retrieved my dream book by the side of the bed. Experts say you dream of people who represent aspects of your personality, not the actual people. But Dwayne was so real, so menacing. It felt as if the man crept into my brain in the night and invaded my sleep.

  TB emerges from the shower looking as if he, too, has been plagued by bad dreams, but says nothing. I keep quiet as well. He’s worried about so many things these days, I didn’t want to add one more.

  After breakfast, we grab our things and head out, TB to his early morning class and me to the Lightning Bug library to see what the friendly folks think of my cove. Afterward, it’s off to the new doctor for my ultrasound.

  TB pulls up in front of the two-story library, something modern and new compared to the run-down mini version in Emma’s Cove. TB runs a nervous hand through his hair.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell him. “It’ll be fine. Remember, the heartbeat was strong.”

  He nods and exhales but he’s tightly wound inside. I know this because I feel the same.

  “Call me as soon as you’re done,” he says with a catch in his throat.

  I give him a super long, super passionate kiss and send him on his way, then head inside. The librarian at the central desk immediately welcomes me.

  “What can I help you with?” she asks with a warm smile.

  Night and day.

  “I’m looking for the history of Emma’s Cove.”

  I wait for some form of rebuttal, a snarky remark, a suspicious look or maybe a dozen questions, considering how Maribelle painted this picture. Instead, the librarian asks nicely how I want to proceed.

  “We have a series of folders on the town, each containing paper resources such as articles, brochures….”

  “Brochures?”

  “The logging company printed one to attract workers and their families.”

  “Didn’t last, though, right? The land wasn’t conducive to logging?”

  The librarian with a slight accent that makes me think South of the Border leans her elbows on the counter, gets comfortable. Still so affable.

  “They logged quite a bit in the area, so they were selling the whole region. If you visit you’ll see some sections of land with new growth.”

  I’m thinking of that brown swath by the lake and the actual town. That must have been the first attempt to deforest the area before they gave up.

  “In fact,” this nice librarian continues, “Emma’s Cove did prove to be difficult, but not all of it. I can imagine some developers right now would love to get their hands on some of that lakefront property.”

  I think back to the woods on the other side of Maribelle’s motel, a lovely plot stretching down from the road to the lake with only a gradual slope, wonder who owns it.

  “We also have a local historian who wrote a book about the town, and primarily Emma Harrington,” the librarian adds.

  “I’d like to see it all,” I say.

  She smiles, which takes me aback even more. So nice. “There’s a lot.”

  My ultrasound’s at one p.m. so I have time. “Bring it on.”

  Camille Smith — her name’s on her lanyard — leads me to a room that’s self-contained and brings me books and folders that pile up on the table. She tells me to be sure and ask for more assistance should I need it, then closes the door discreetly behind her.

  I sigh and start with the first pile, working in chronological order. On the top in the first folder marked 1905-1919 I find the company brochure. Clark-Everhart Timber Company made it look like heaven, old-growth trees fresh for the taking, pristine streams that lead to a small cove eventually emptying into the Tennessee River, and comfortable company cabins. Inside the brochure are photos of happy families living the good life.

  On the back, however, are men standing proudly on top of massive downed trees, looking arrogant as if they had bagged a lion on an African safari. My witchy heart aches viewing the deforestation of such beauties and my environmental righteousness — these trees must have been at least a hundred years old — makes me want to yell at the photo.

  I quickly push the brochure aside and pull out articles from the early Lightning Bug Chronicle about Clark-Everhart Timber heading west and south toward Chattanooga, where land is “easier to tame” and the railroad rolls through. Again, I grit my teeth. Why must nature always be “tamed?”

  And yes, I’m a tree hugger. I hail from South Louisiana where sleepy live oaks dripping with Spanish moss stretch their arms as if to embrace and protect us — and many times they do. Nothing spells peace more to me than a good book beneath a shady, welcoming tree. Add a glass of wine and you’re talking nirvana.

  There’s goes my ADHD brain again. I shake my head and focus, open the next folder that heads into the nineteen twenties and early thirties. Finally, Emma appears. There’s a piece about her quilt being accepted into a Chattanooga art gallery, then one in Chicago. At the bottom of the pile I find an old press photo of Emma standing proudly — much like those men in the company brochure — next to an exquisite quilt. I say quilt but it’s more like textile art, pieces of fabric making up a dreamy lake in the center surrounded by magnificent trees waving in a breeze. Tiny leaves float on the wind and those sparkles I witnessed this morning dot the lake’s water. In the corner a woman gazes at the scene, her hair whipping around her face. I can’t help feeling movement staring at this quilt, as if I’m there by the side of the lake, smelling the trees, feeling the breeze in my hair.

  I close my eyes and suddenly I am there, standing in the exact same spot I stood in yesterday. There’s no brown swath but no trees grow here either. I realize the loggers did choose this spot first, then cleared the land for the town. In fact, everything around me has been laid bare.

  “It was to be a park for the children,” the woman from the picture tells me, and there’s a sadness in her voice.

  I turn to spot the woman in the quilt but instead hear a knocking on the room’s glass. I open my eyes and find my kind librarian opening the door.

  “Are you okay?”

  I shake off my vision, wish I could have had one more moment to see who was speaking, but I thank Camille and assure her I’m fine. She looks around and hesitates, then finally enters my room and closes the door behind her.

  “I don’t know if you know this but there’s some history between this town and the Cove.”

  I want to laugh. “I’ve heard.”

  She doesn’t sit down but rather leans in close. I gather she wants to impart some secretive information and retreat quickly.

  “The part about it being a sanctuary of sorts is true. I lived there until I got this job and then I moved into town.”

  I’m not sure where she’s going with this but she discreetly hands me a modern brochure, this one about women in abusive relationships and how to get help.

  “I moved there because my husband is going to school at Rocky Mountain,” I tell her.

  She holds up her hands like a cop at a stop sign and backs up. “No need to explain.”

  I try to return the brochure, but she keeps retreating toward the door.

  “Honestly, that’s not why I’m there.”

  “Just FYI. The number’s on the back.” And then she’s gone.

  I slip the brochure into my backpack and do something completely against my ethics and morals, slipping Emma’s photo in there as well. I can’t believe I’m stealing from the library, but I assure myself I will return it once I scan
it at home. No harm done, I tell myself. Besides, it’s the photo used in the issue of Life magazine and the folder contains two copies of the magazine. But no matter how I spin my action, I can’t believe I’m doing such a thing. It’s almost as if some power forced my hand when I had the chance.

  The next folder I pull from the pile heads into the Great Depression with several articles critical of Emma’s success. Lightning Bug leaders report Emma helping women from other places, neglecting Tennessee residents, and training them in jobs that should have belonged to locals. The writer of the opinion piece, a newspaper editor by the name of Wilton Delaney, demands that Harrington focus more on the immediate community.

  “Mrs. Harrington has gained notoriety in august places such as New York and Chicago but she shares her success with every American town but her own,” Delaney writes.

  “We spoke with one of those women, a Mrs. Montclair, who hails from Indiana! This woman abandoned her husband and uprooted her children to live a life of luxury and debauchery by Mrs. Harrington’s side in the now notorious ‘Emma’s Cove,’ sharing her money with this unsavory woman that could be better spent on the poor citizens of our town. Or in her own town in Indiana.”

  Notorious? Unsavory? I flip through more articles and there’s one of another cove woman returning home to her “grieving husband who was lost without the comfort of wife and children.”

  I’m starting to get the picture here. Emma found success as a single woman and wanted other women in similar situations or abusive relationships to learn how to be self-sustaining as well. And the good people of Lightning Bug weren’t pleased.

  Funny, how greed and jealousy can do that. I think back to Rosario, a friend who moved to New Orleans from Guatemala when her husband got work in the Louisiana offshore oil fields. To make ends meets, Rosario earned money cleaning houses in town. She was good at business and her cleaning service quickly expanded so she hired staff and made a good living. When her husband was laid off, he began beating her, stealing her money. She had no legal recourse because of her immigrant status, but she tried living on her own. A competitive cleaning service owned by a prominent New Orleans man reported her and she ended up back in Guatemala.

  “It’s a man’s world,” Rosario told me the last time I saw her, when officials arrived at her apartment to take her to the airport.

  I think of Rosario as I gaze at the last photo of Emma Harrington.

  It’s Emma’s obit.

  “Emma Harrington died Tuesday in her sleep at Emma’s Cove. She was 101.

  Harrington moved with her husband to the town of Everhart in 1912 when Clark-Everhart Timber hired men to work the land. Her husband moved on with the company but Harrington refused to join him, living in Everhart (now Emma’s Cove) until her death.

  She was a farmer, teacher and nurse but received notoriety as an artist, showcasing her work in galleries and art museums around the world.

  Her most famous piece, ‘Speak to the Trees,’ hangs in the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga. The American Art Review called the piece, ‘a breakthrough in the use of color in textile arts, a true masterpiece.’

  Harrington offered a haven for female runaways and abused women, teaching them skills to become self-sufficient. She was accused of harboring undocumented workers and female criminals and of committing tax fraud, routinely investigated by the FBI and the IRS, but never found guilty. In 1937, she was arrested for the murder of several Lightning Bug residents but was never convicted due to lack of evidence.

  Harrington spent the last years of her life as a hermit.

  A private ceremony is scheduled for dawn Thursday in Emma’s Cove. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Emma’s Cove Foundation.”

  FBI? No wonder Maribelle was so suspicious. But murder?

  There are two books related to Emma’s Cove, one written by a local historian and another on the region’s timber industry. It’s approaching noon so I grab the books and head to the check-out counter. I hand Camille the pile of information and ask to check out the two books. Camille’s still affable but she doesn’t meet my eyes and I want to refute her suspicions that I suffer spousal abuse but a line forms behind me. I grab my books and go.

  It’s a good walk to Doctor Mahoney’s office but I’m loving the gorgeous weather now that the cold front has moved on leaving a sunny but brisk day in its wake. This time, however, my Dillard’s jacket adequately warms. I snack on nuts while strolling through town, then head down a small road that turns rural. As I stroll down the gravel road, Craftsmen houses with small yards turn to farm houses, some with horses and cows and some with long stretches of fallow fields. I relish in the peace and quiet but when it continues for more than a mile I’m convinced I took a wrong turn, Finally, I spot a sign announcing Dr. Mary Mahoney, general practice. Not what I was expecting, thought Dr. Mahoney specialized in babies, but I walk up the long driveway anyway.

  I wonder if Mad Maribelle has called Mahoney, relayed what happened the night before and if I’m still welcomed here. Considering Mahoney’s a GP, I won’t mind searching for a new gynecologist and am now convinced a trip to Cleveland is in order. Still, I had hoped for answers today so I’m wishing I at least get that ultrasound.

  The waiting room has two women seated who both smile when I enter and the tables contain intelligent magazines lying about so I’m hopeful. When I state my name to the nurse, however, hope fades. She avoids my gaze and tells me she suspects they don’t take my insurance.

  “You said you did when I called yesterday.”

  I put my backpack on to the counter and start rummaging through my notes and library books. Finally, I locate my wallet and retrieve it but the brochure on abusive relationships falls out onto the counter. I pull the insurance card from my wallet, but when I look up the nurse has the brochure in her hands.

  “Let’s trade,” I say, taking the brochure from her and handing over my card.

  She’s now looking at me with what I suspect is empathy. I want to explain why I have that brochure but she quickly says, “Let me check,” and heads toward the back.

  I sit down and make myself comfortable, enjoying National Geographic’s latest exploration of light pollution and how modern civilizations live without darkness and rarely see the stars.

  “I see the stars,” I think, remembering the first night we spent on our houseboat and how vivid the night sky shined down upon us. I really do love my new home, despite its history.

  After twenty minutes — and thankfully after I finish the fascinating article — my name is called and I follow the nurse into the back rooms. I’m weighed and measured, asked a million questions, then head into a room where the ultrasound machine sits in a corner. I’m wearing loose pants so there’s no need for me to disrobe.

  A woman with long black hair tied in a ponytail enters the room and greets me, introduces herself as the doctor and places a hand on my shoulder while she asks about the baby. She’s engaging and owns kind eyes. Despite my worries about being dismissed, I’m feeling at ease. I lean back on the table and expose my belly while she tells me the usual — that the gel will be cold and it may tickle.

  “But you know the routine,” she adds.

  This doctor actually read my chart.

  I’m holding my breath as she moves the wand across my stomach looking for a heartbeat and images of the child I will bring into the world. My body tenses and my head aches from the lack of oxygen. Just before I start to see daytime stars, I feel the doctor pat my knee.

  “Relax, Viola. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  How different, I think, as I exhale and try to relieve the tightness in my chest.

  And then, I hear it. Loud and clear. Thumping to all the world.

  “There she is,” Mahoney says, smiling broadly. “There’s your baby.”

  I look up and see a beating heart on the monitor, with two small arms protruding. As Mahoney moves the wand, the head appears, everything looking healthy and
where it needs to be. Another slide and the whole child materializes on the screen.

  “That’s one very healthy baby.”

  I can’t help it, I start to cry. Like bawl. For the past three months, I pushed the fear aside, trying not to think of what may happen bringing another child into the world. I wasn’t ignoring the child growing inside of me, but I didn’t want to image the worst. Imagine what happened to Lillye.

  I feel Mahoney’s hand on my shoulder. “Cry all you want, sweetheart. It’s tough having another after losing your first.”

  I nod, thankful I’m experiencing this with an empathetic doctor, and continue my cry fest while she measures the baby and records the information.

  “Everything’s great, the baby exactly where she needs to be.”

  “She?” I finally ask, getting my emotions under control.

  “I can’t tell, just use that gender since men used theirs all those years.” She sends me a fun smile.

  “But what about that?” the nurse asks, pointing to what looks like an appendage near the baby’s thigh.

  Doctor Mahoney studies the scene and her countenance changes. She examine the screen and frowns and my heart constricts.

  “What?” I ask.

  She shakes her head as if she’s pondering something, then rolls her chair to the other side of my belly and begins the process again. I spot a healthy heartbeat and the outline of my child but it looks different, like a photograph that’s been flipped.

  Mahoney takes more measurements and these appear to be different if I’m not mistaken, then she does a full belly sweep and there’s that photo illusion again. Mahoney sends the nurse a look and the nurse smiles.

  “What?” I say, feeling like my heart’s about to be ripped from my chest.

  Mahoney takes off her gloves and smiles. “Ms. Valentine, do you have twins in your family?”