Jonah waved her off. “I know.”
She didn’t say anything more and followed him back to the bed. He crawled in first and held the covers up for her as she slid in. He pulled her against his side, but stayed on his back. Within seconds, Dani heard the slow methodical breathing from him and knew he had fallen asleep. She stayed awake, but remained tucked under his arm.
She kept her eyes open.
Just in case…
But no Erica came again, and when she knew she couldn’t sleep, she slid out of his arms again. Instead of heading back for more coffee, she went for a quick run. He was on the dock when she came back.
She waved from a few yards away. “I’ll stop here. Don’t wanna foul-odor you to death.”
Jonah grinned. “Much appreciated, but I’m a man. I’ve smelled worse, guaranteed.”
“Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”
Jonah moved to sit on the end, his toes in the water, and he patted the seat next to him. There was enough room for two between the posts. “How far did you go?”
“Far enough.”
Jonah shook his head. “How far?”
“Three miles.”
He whistled softly. “Must’ve run pretty hard to get back when you did.”
“Think I was trying to outrun my problems,” Dani admitted ruefully, kicking her feet lightly in the water. The water felt good, but that just meant the day was going to be a scorcher.
“What woke you the second time?”
Dani knew he wouldn’t buy a non-answer, but she shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about it. “Nothing.”
She stared ahead, but Jonah stared at her.
She felt his appraisal, and she held her breath, knowing he’d continue with his questions. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She was beginning to. It was that she didn’t want to voice the words. Once she did, once she heard them out loud—there was no going back. Half the battle was accepting the haunts, and talking about her dead little sister, who was one ghost she didn’t want to discuss. Not yet, and then an approaching boat interrupted them.
Dani almost leapt to her feet, alongside Jonah as he waved them down. She felt a knot unravel, just a little bit inside of her.
The boat veered toward them. A second later, Dani stood and saw Trenton Galloway grinning back at them, one hand over his eyebrows to help see against the rising sunlight.
“Trenton Galloway works for you?” He was another memory from high school. He’d been in Jonah’s rough group of friends, but also ran for student council. She was pretty sure he was one of the basketball captains, too.
Jonah grasped the boat’s front and climbed inside. “I run the river. Everyone works for me. They just don’t know it.”
“Hey, Dani.” Trenton lifted a hand, already reversing the boat. “Heard you were back.”
“Sure am.”
But her gaze was on Jonah as he helped push off the dock. Grinning at her, he held her look until they turned the boat around and sped back through the lake’s canal. The waves slowly melted, and the lake shone smooth once more. A glass reflection from the blue ocean above.
Good riddance. Dani took a deep breath as she held on to a steel post on the end of her dock. The floorboard creaked and protested as she shifted her feet. She’d never allowed Boone a window into her soul. The shutters were always drawn, but he’d never asked. She’d let Jonah share her bed, hold her hand, and comfort her.
He’d done more than Jake and Boone combined. Well, almost.
Dani shook off the unsettling thoughts and moved back inside. The coffee had been good, but she craved some tea. After a shower, a change, and a quick inventory of the kitchen—she only had enough for that day. She’d have to go back to town again, and as she drove past some fields, a cow was in the ditch on the wrong side of the fence.
It had a black body with a white-tip nose. Dani knew the nearest home belonged to Mrs. Bendsfield. There was a billboard positioned at the end of the driveway. It was supposed to proclaim the owner’s age, and every year she got older, Mrs. Bendsfield bought a cow. The number read fifty-two, but the paint was faded. She wasn’t going to hold her breath that the number was repainted until there was a new owner. Dani glanced at the rest of the cows standing on the right side of the fence, and eyeballed more than fifty-two, but if one could get out, others could follow.
Dani tried finding the hole in the fence, but couldn’t and she ended up turning into the driveway. Rounding a bend in the driveway, the farmhouse came into view and Dani parked just before the garage. A small picket fence closed in a garden, greeting the house’s frontside. Except for a smattering of oil-streaked rags piled on the front porch, the two-story, white house looked clean. It looked like it had recently been painted. Dani never got a tour of the place, at least not at any age she could remember, but she remembered visiting with her mother a few times. She mostly remembered the chocolate chip cookies. After her mother passed, Mrs. Bendsfield was nice, but she’d never been ‘on good terms’ with Aunt Mae. So the visits stopped, and so did the chocolate chip cookies.
Not many of the upstanding citizens of Craigstown acknowledged a friendship with the owner of Mae’s Grill, one of the busiest businesses in Craigstown. It didn’t matter. Her Aunt Mae’s background of boozing and floozing still set the precedence, and so any friendship that might’ve been there would never see daylight.
Aunt Mae never cared. Dani thought she actually preferred it because she could do what she wanted and say what she wanted. Folks would keep coming to Mae’s Grill no matter what. It was too popular among the tourists and locals.
But Mrs. Bendsfield was on the different side of the tracks. She wasn’t one of the upstanding citizens, but she wasn’t one of the ‘other’ citizens like Aunt Mae. Mrs. Bendsfield just lived in her own little world.
Remembering all of that, she wasn’t sure what she was in store for as she knocked on the screen door. “Hello? Mrs. Bendsfield?” It was loose, so it rattled in the doorframe with each knock. Dani was hesitant to knock harder. She didn’t want to bust through the screen on her first adult visit. Not hearing a response, she turned and walked to the backyard. Nothing. Dani checked the garage. Two vehicles were inside. Mrs. Bendsfield’s van, the world’s largest daisy painted on it—Dani saw it had just been given a fresh covering, just like the house—still sat in the same place Dani remembered from her visits. A red Volkswagon was next to it, with a foot thick of dust.
Dani didn’t want to intrude in the house, so she tried the barns next.
The shed was empty, only home to an antique tractor and grain bins.
The main barn was unlocked and Dani stepped inside, finding herself in the milking room with the aroma of drying milk inside. Heading down a small hallway, she opened the door and a bunch of cats scattered in every direction. Expecting to find feeding stalls, she saw instead that half of the interior had been renovated into a pottery studio. The left side still had the stalls where the cows were fed and milked.
“Mrs. Bendsfield?”
Her voice echoed across the barn.
“Huh? Who there?” Mrs. Bendsfield called back, her voice shrill.
Dani couldn’t locate her. “It’s me, Mrs. Bendsfield’s. Dani O’Hara.”
“What? What you say? I thought a moment you said Dani O’Hara, but that can’t be right. That girl’s been dead a long time.” The voice was still distant, and both voices kept echoing.
“No. No, it’s me, Mrs. Bendsfield. I came back home.”
“No, no. It’s me. I’m just fooling in the head again. Little Daniella O’Hara was taken by that cancer. I know because her mother came crying to me. Thirty-four back then.”
Dani caught her breath. She hadn’t heard words spoken about Sandra, ever. It had been an understood rule—no one talked about her grandmother.
Mrs. Bendsfield mused to herself. “Oh no. I know you’s in my head. Little Daniella O’Hara died long while back, left three rabbits behind, and her mother just sobbed and
sobbed. No one knows what to do. No one knows what to do. Little Daniella O’Hara was the minx and angel, I tell you. Half-minx and half-angel, that one. No one knows what to do.”
Dani took a hesitant step forward. Crossing toward the pottery studio, she continued to hear Mrs. Bendsfied mutter, and realized she was in a back room where a heavy plastic curtain was hung from the ceiling.
“I knows I’m just hearing my own voices. Memories, that’s what they are. Little Daniella O’Hara, always came around these parts. She just took a liking to Oscar, that she did. No one knows what to do. Her mother always cried to me. Thought I was supposed to know what to do, but I didn’t. Clueless. Just like the rest of them! Oh no. That girl’s just back to haunt me. Always knew it was coming. Always knew it was coming.”
Dani paused at the doorway and saw Mrs. Bendsfield’s petite figure. She wore a loose long-sleeved shirt, as big as the old woman was, and she was bent over a pot. Mrs. Bendsfield was circling with a paintbrush in hand, pausing sporadically to lean forward and make a dab. She was adding detail to the pot.
Dani saw herself staring into an oncoming ocean wave. And she suddenly felt, literally felt, the waves coming for her.
Choking in a breath, she steeled herself. The waves crashed back, and she heard the first scream—”Daniella O’Hara?”
Mrs. Bendsfield stood frozen, hand raised, clenching a small paintbrush.
“Uh…” Dani blinked, pushing the memory away. “Mrs. Bendsfield, I came in because I saw—”
“No.” Mrs. Bendsfield interrupted, waving the paintbrush at her, stabbing the air. “Do you know what you’ve been doing to me? Years of guilt, girl. Years of guilt, and here you are, living, breathing, and part of my delusions. I want you out! Out!”
“No. No. Mrs. Bendsfield, it’s me. Dani O’Hara. I’m Daniella’s daughter. I came in because I saw one of your cows got loose. She’s in the ditch.”
Mrs. Bendsfield sniffed and crossed her arms. The paintbrush smeared paint across her face and arm, but she didn’t notice as she stared intensely at her. She circled Dani’s form, studying her from every angle. Then she murmured, “You’re the best damn delusion I’ve ever had. I must’ve had an extra dose of mushrooms in that last batch.”
The lady wasn’t senile. She was high.
“Mrs. Bendsfield, I am not a delusion and I am not my mother’s ghost here to haunt you. I am here because one of your cows got loose.” Her head inclined forward an inch. “A cow.”
“Oh.” She waved the paintbrush in a dismissing manner. “That’s GoldenEye. She wanted to go for a walk, so I let her loose. Don’t worry. She’ll come back.”
“Mrs. Bendsfield.”
“No, no.” Mrs. Bendsfield turned back to her pottery and hunched down on her haunches. She returned to painting. “GoldenEye always comes back. Always has, always will. You can either take off or you can sit and entertain me a bit.”
Dani sighed.
“Don’t get snippy with me. You’re my delusion.”
Dani glanced back to the door, but sat on an empty chair in the corner. She’d never known that Mrs. Bendsfield knew her grandmother. She wanted to know why her mother’s ghost would be haunting the potter.
“Why would I be haunting you?”
Mrs. Bendsfield sniffed, wrinkling her nose at Dani. “You know why. Don’t play that game with me. Not with me, girly ghost.”
“I’m here and I’m haunting you, but I don’t know why. I’d at least like to know why. I’m an amnesic ghost.”
Mrs. Bendsfield fixed her with another hair-raising stare. Then she shrugged. “Because you loved my Oscar and I wouldn’t have any of that.”
Oscar Bendsfield was Mrs. Bendsfield’s son. He went missing thirty years ago, and the story was that he fought with his mother over his absent father. He wanted to find him. She didn’t. But he swore he would and that night, he walked to the woods and never came back. The story was told over campfires and during sleepovers. The moral had been to avoid empty threats. Some argued he hadn’t made an empty threat. He was still searching for his vagabond father, but some thought he’d gotten snatched and murdered. Still, others always said Mrs. Bendsfield killed him in a rage because he dared defy her word.
Dani always rolled her eyes every time she heard the story. It was a stupid rumor created by mothers to scare their children from using emotional blackmail, but she found herself asking, “Did he love me?”
“Delusions are supposed to be all-knowing, not all-stupid,” Mrs. Bendsfield said matter-of-factly, dabbing away.
Dani held her breath. She waited a beat. “Did he father my children?”
Mrs. Bendsfield froze. Her hand stopped mid-motion and then, after a second, she stood slowly and rotated on her feet to stare at Dani. “Oscar Bendsfield was my son, and he was no father to any of your children. You get that in your head and stop showing up around these parts! I took a shovel to you thirty years ago, and I’ll take a shovel to you today.”
Dani stood slowly, hands fisted at her side. “Are you sure he wasn’t my father?”
Mrs. Bendsfield blinked, but remained in place. She shook her head and muttered, “Don’t need these headaches. Don’t need these delusions. Headaches and delusions. I have to lay off those mushrooms…”
“Did you hurt my mother?!” Dani’s voice rose, quaking just a bit.
“Stop playing with me. We both know what happened. Your mother’s been in the insane asylum since Oscar took off. You should’ve gone with her for all the foolhardy things you were saying. My Oscar would never touch a piece of filth like you. We both know that. Just get on raising those bastards of yours.”
Dani stepped forward. “Bastards? Bastards of whose? I want to know!”
“It was the other vagabond. Although he wasn’t no vagabond by my standards. Kept coming back to sire the last two, didn’t he? Vagabonds come and go. That’s how they do it. That’s how my Oscar was born.”
“You kept your son from being my father?”
Mrs. Bendsfield frowned and stepped back as Dani stalked forward. One step by one step. A slow and menacing game of cat and mouse.
“Where’s my grandmother?”
Confusion crossed the elder woman’s features a moment, and she answered, “Your grandmother’s in the grave, Daniella. You know that. You held my hand at her funeral.”
“Where’s my mother?” Dani asked instead.
“The asylum. I already told you, but you know that. You kept it from your two sisters, remember? A secret to the grave, that was our agreement.”
“What asylum? I don’t remember.”
“St. Francis over in Petersberg. You’ve been visiting her all your life. I don’t know why you forgot that. Don’t make no sense. Delusions don’t make no sense.” She bent back over her work, muttering to herself, “Subconscious, my ass.”
“Mrs. Bendsfield,” Dani said firmly.
The old lady turned back, slightly irritated at the intrusion.
“I am not a delusion, and I am not the Daniella O’Hara that you remember. I am her daughter, Danielle. I was named after my mom and I will be back. Be sober when I do. I want some answers.”
She knew Mrs. Bendsfield would just shake her head, convince herself it was a weird hallucination, and go back to painting. Dani didn’t care. She remembered her mother with dancing spices and magical powers. Mrs. Bendsfield remembered her mother with suspicion, hauntings, and secrets to the grave.
Dani didn’t like knowing that her mother would take a secret to the grave.
She drove until she found GoldenEye. As she drew closer, the cow didn’t move. She had a halter on with a strap attached, and didn’t bat an eye when Dani led the cow back down the road. A gate wasn’t too far away. Dani unlatched it, led the cow back inside. Once inside, she unclasped the halter and took it off, draping it over a post as she headed back to her car.
Just before she was about to get in, Dani turned and looked back toward Mrs. Bendsfield’s home.
She h
ad walked this road many times, driven the same gravel, and she even cried here after a few fights with Jake. She never thought about the older woman, but she noticed now that the home lay underfoot of two massive oaks, as if protecting it with giant hands shielding the sun’s rays. It always had a peaceful air to the home.
Or she used to think.
Dani was on her dock that evening when Aunt Mae arrived. She didn’t have to look back to know who it was. Only one person could walk that irritated without sound.
“You need a damn cellphone.” Aunt Mae plopped beside her and tugged the afghan Dani had on her lap to cover her as well.