Premeditated Marriage. B.J. Daniels
had The Gift, that she could practically look into your head and see things that no one else could—including the future.
There had been times when Charlie wasn’t so sure they weren’t right. But mostly she believed her aunt just paid more attention to the little things, things other people maybe didn’t take the time to notice. Not that it wasn’t damn eerie on occasion. And a real pain if you preferred to keep your problems to yourself.
The phone rang. Charlie tried to hide her relief as she gave her aunt a shrug and picked up the receiver from the wall phone.
“That guy whose car broke down—Gus—he just left,” Helen whispered. “I thought you’d want to know.”
“Really?” she said and smiled at her aunt, knowing there was more.
“He was asking a lot of questions.”
“About what?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
“About that man who drowned in the lake and about you.”
Charlie let out a little laugh and turned away from her aunt. “Well, you know what they say about curiosity.”
“That’s not the worst part,” Helen said. “Trudi warmed right up to him. You know how she is.”
Everyone knew how Trudi Murphy was. The stranger probably would know soon enough.
“I think you should try to find out something about him,” Helen said. “I don’t like the looks of him.” She didn’t like the looks of most men. Blame it on four bad marriages and a weakness for losers. “What’s he wanting to know about you for anyway?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s nothing.” She wished that were true.
“I hope you’re right,” Helen said. “Once his car is fixed, maybe he’ll leave. Maybelle said he only paid for one night.”
“That’s good.” But she had a feeling it didn’t mean a thing. “Thanks for letting me know.” She hung up and turned, feeling her aunt’s intent gaze.
“Charlotte—” Selma began.
“What in the world?” her mother said from the doorway. Vera’s eyes widened with wonder, as if the boxes on the table were brightly wrapped presents instead of vegetables from the gourd family and the fruit that destroyed Eden.
Her mother was smaller than Selma and lacked her sister’s strength. Vera had always been the fragile one, her pale skin almost translucent, her hair now downy feather white.
Aunt Selma gave Charlie a warning look, one she knew only too well. Don’t upset your mother. The words should have been stitched on their living-room pillows.
“I’ve been wanting to make some pumpkin pies,” Selma said.
Vera Larkin smiled dreamily. Her cardigan sweater had fallen off one shoulder. “I do love pumpkin pie. With ice cream.” She frowned. “Or is it whipped cream?”
“Either sounds good,” Selma told her as she pulled her sister’s sweater around her thin shoulders.
Charlie noticed that her mother’s slippers were on the wrong feet as she watched the two leave the room. She closed her eyes, the pain too intense. It broke her heart to see her mother like this and growing worse each day.
If it wasn’t for Aunt Selma… It was hard to believe that Selma was almost seventy, the older of the sisters. She’d never married. When Charlie was a child, she’d found a yellowed wedding dress in the attic. Her mother had told her a romantic story about Selma falling wildly in love with a soldier. They were to be married, but just days before he was coming home, his plane was shot down. Devastated, Selma had sworn never to love another man.
Of course, there were people in Utopia who swore the story was as phony as Trudi Murphy’s bust. But then how did Charlie explain the wedding dress still in the attic? If Selma’s “sight” was to be believed, maybe Selma had known long ago that Vera was going to need her and that’s why she’d never married. Maybe Selma had called off the wedding after another one of Vera’s miscarriages had laid her up. It would be like Selma.
Vera had never been strong, according to Selma. She’d married Burt at eighteen full of hope, but quickly became weakened both physically and spiritually by miscarriages and disappointments, until finally Charlie was born. Vera was almost forty by then.
Just twenty-one years later, she lost Burt to a heart attack. It had been a blow that had left her mother crippled emotionally and brought Charlie racing back from college to take over the garage. That had been four years ago. Aunt Selma had been there, though, each time Vera needed her. It wasn’t surprising that Selma had been the one to notice Vera’s Alzheimer’s first.
“Are you warm enough?” Selma was asking Vera in the living room. “It’s snowing out. Maybe I should throw more logs on the fire. Would you like that?” Selma glanced over her shoulder as she helped Vera into a wingback chair in front of the fireplace, her look clear: We will talk later.
Charlie had no doubt of that. Selma and Vera had already eaten dinner. Charlie could smell the chicken and dumplings Selma had saved her. There was a warm apple pie, too.
Charlie had tried to get Selma to slow down.
“Cooking and caring for my sister is what I’ve always done,” Selma had snapped. “Let me enjoy myself and don’t get in my way.” She’d softened the words with a smile. “You know how much I love doing this.”
Charlie had nodded and stayed out of her way, helping out as much as she could behind the scenes.
While Charlie ate, Vera chattered away about things that had happened forty years ago. Selma was too quiet, as if she could read Charlie’s thoughts, which kept returning to the stranger in town.
After dinner and dishes, Charlie got her coat from the peg and went out on the porch, hoping the cold night air would clear her head. It wasn’t long before she heard the soft creak of slipper steps on the floorboards behind her.
“Well?” Selma’s voice sounded hoarse with worry.
She didn’t turn around. “It’s nothing.” She tried to sound unconcerned.
“Then why do you seem…scared?”
Scared? Is that what this was? This quaking inside her. This high-frequency jitter, like being connected to a high-voltage battery all the time. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she started throwing off sparks. At first it had been a low buzz. Almost a nervous energy. Anxiety. Worry. But now she vibrated with what had to be more than fear. She hugged herself as if that would still her terror. At least long enough to reassure her aunt.
“There’s something I need to ask you.” Selma seemed to hesitate. “Does this have anything to do with that young man they pulled from the lake?”
Charlie turned slowly to look at her aunt. Selma stood in a pool of light from the kitchen window wearing a thick wool sweater over her polyester pantsuit. Charlie remembered her mother secretly knitting the sweater several years ago. A Christmas present in Selma’s favorite colors, browns, golds and reds.
Even from here Charlie could see the mistakes in the pattern. The signs had been there that long ago, only Charlie hadn’t recognized them. But then, it was so hard to admit that someone you loved was losing her mind.
“Yes,” Charlie said. It had everything to do with Josh Whitaker.
Selma reached for the porch railing and closed her eyes, her bare hand pale and bony, veins blue against the white skin, frail.
Charlie started to reach for her, afraid her aunt was going to collapse. But she drew back her hand at the last minute as Selma’s eyes snapped open.
Before she saw the tears, Charlie was going to tell her aunt everything. The weight of holding something like this inside just seemed too much to bear alone any longer. But the tears stopped her. Selma