The Ghostwriter

  She didn’t handle it well. She called me insolent. Spoiled. A brat. She tried to make me feel guilty for not wanting to see my grandmother, for not wanting to spend time with my family. I didn’t understand the obligation I had to a woman whom I’d only seen a handful of times. I didn’t understand the ridiculous expectation that I should love her simply because she birthed my mother. I wasn’t even sure, in that thirteen-year-old mindset, that I loved my own mother.

  But I did love Bethany. Even when I screamed and ran away and ignored her—I loved her. I used to look at her and my heart would hurt. It would swell in my chest, and there would be a sudden flare of panic—a sharp prick of vulnerability. In that moment, I would fear losing her. Maybe it’s a normal fear, one that every parent has. Or maybe, it was God’s warning to me, the foreshadowing he was writing into my story.

  I should have listened to it. I shouldn’t have swallowed that fear. I should have been the right kind of mother, suppressed my instincts and selfishness, and put her first. I should have kept her a million miles from my mother, held her against me, and never let her go anywhere, do anything.

  Keeping her prisoner would have been better than losing her.

  On his front porch, the rocker I sit in wobbles, each forward roll creaking over bumpy boards. The blanket around my shoulders is soft, and I relax against it, the mug of hot chocolate cooling in my hands. Before us, there is a stretch of darkness, no fireflies in this space, the moon behind a cloud, the occasional click of nails giving away the dog’s location.

  “You tired?” Mark sits on the step, ignoring the other rocker, his shoulders hunched over as he lights a cigar. “It’s been a long day. Gotta be past midnight.”

  I am tired. Too tired to even pull back the sleeve of my shirt and check the time. It doesn’t matter. Out here, the chorus of crickets humming—we seem a hundred miles from civilization, in a place where clocks don’t exist, deadlines don’t matter, and basic needs are the only concerns. I can’t imagine sitting on this porch and caring about bestseller ranks and end-cap placements. I’m shocked Mark even knows who I am, or has read my books. It had been easy to picture Marka in an expensive high rise, her fake nails tapping out nasty emails. But I can’t fit Mark into that mold. I can’t see those terrible words coming from this man.

  “Your emails to me.” I eye him, watching the muscles of his back as he straightens, setting the lighter to the side and rolling the cigar between his fingers. He turns his head and wisps of smoke frame his profile. “Why did you start emailing me?”

  He looks down, and I watch the flex of his jaw as he eyes his cigar. Bringing it to his mouth, he takes a long pull before turning to face me, his face a quiet mix of emotions. “Memphis Bride,” he finally says, one leg crossing over another.

  “Excuse me?” My medication makes me loopy, but I am fairly certain a fully rational person wouldn’t be able to follow that answer.

  “The name ring a bell?” He raises his eyebrows. “No?” There is a hint of accusation in his tone, and a pool of dread forms in my stomach. I should know this. For some reason, I am failing this test.

  “No.”

  “It was my first book. My first real book.” He waves a hand toward the house. “Not like all of the trashy crap that paid for this house, or for my wife’s chemo treatments. It was a good book, one that took me three years to write and eighteen rejection letters to recover from before I got a publishing deal. My first publishing deal. It’s a big deal, you know?” he shrugs, and brings the cigar to his lips. “No. You wouldn’t know. You got one right out of the gate, right? I read that article. You had agents and publishers tripping all over your first novel. But not me. It’s not easy to convince editors to read a male-written romance.”

  I already regret asking the question. I can see this train wreck, and the place it is leading to. A blurb. Had he requested one?

  “I got a twenty-thousand dollar advance on that book. Half at signing, same as our deal.” He smiles at me, but there is no warmth in the gesture. “I quit my job that day. Took Ellen and Maggie out, bought us all steak dinners. Life was good.” He blows out a stream of smoke and the smell of the cigar inches closer, the hint of it stronger in the air. “How’d you celebrate your first advance?”

  I don’t answer. I only wait, for what is surely to come. He eyes me, and I don’t move, don’t look away, our dance finally interrupted by a shake of his head, his eyes moving past me and out into the darkness.

  “The publisher wanted author blurbs. They reached out to authors with similar books, you had recently published Garden Room. It was a long shot, but you accepted the galley.”

  “I’m guessing I didn’t like the book.”

  He coughs out a hard laugh. “Oh no, Helena. It’s safe to say you didn’t like the book. I’m surprised you’ve forgotten it, actually.” He glances down, wiping a hand on his sweatpants before looking back out. “You wrote a four-page letter to my editor and were kind enough to CC me on it. You described every flaw in the novel, the root of your opinion being that my writing was flat and without talent. Childish, that was one word you used.” He tilts a head toward the house. “You can read the letter if you’d like. It’s framed in my office, right next to a New York Times list, the first one where I topped you.”

  “It wasn’t malicious.” I straighten in my seat. “I was probably trying to help.”

  “Help?” He snorts. “You scared my editor so badly she pulled the novel. It was never published, and I never got the rest of that advance. My writing career was done. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers and looks over at me. “That easily. All because Helena Ross didn’t like my book. You were hot shit and I was expendable.”

  I should apologize. The path is clear and obvious. But I push my lips together. If I took the time to write a letter, it must have been bad.

  “I couldn’t get my job back. Ellen… she worked at a farm up the road, and we limped along and I wrote anything and everything. Publishers weren’t interested in any of it. Then she got sick and I got desperate. I started self-publishing, in a bunch of different genres. Erotica is the one that took off.” He leans forward and spits out, into the darkness. “And Marka Vantly was born.”

  I’ve read Marka Vantly’s bio fifty times. It’s all flowers and champagne, a California party girl who stumbled onto publishing success after writing down her steamy exploits on the Beverly Hills dating scene. It doesn’t say anything about a sick wife, or a grizzled cowboy, one who cooks a mean pot of chili but doesn’t clean his baseboards.

  I tried to do the math in my head. “How long did your wife… when did she—?”

  “It started out ovarian cancer. She fought it four years before it took her. She left us three years ago. Three years and two months.” He probably knows more. He probably knows the days and the hours, the timeframe clicking through his mind. In some ways, I recognize so much of his grief. In other ways, we are completely different.

  I stand up. “I’d like to go to bed.”

  I am opening the screen door when he speaks.

  “You asked why I started to email you.”

  I pause, not certain I still want the answer to that question.

  “For a long time, I hated you. I emailed you out of that hatred. I wanted you to know who I was. But over the last seven years…” The dog approaches, and he puts out his hand, drawing the animal closer. “You made me a better writer. Knowing that you were reading my novels—that pushed me forward.” He looks over at me. “So, thank you. For responding. I’m sure that you get a lot of mail.”

  I shift, and his forgiveness only makes me feel worse. “Okay.”

  I nod to him, an attempt at a parting gesture, and then, swinging the door open, I escape inside.

  A baby. Impossibly chubby face, her eyes just slits that avoid my own, flitting over everything else. She cries all the time, a piercing shriek, a broken record on
repeat. In some ways she’s delicate, in others she’s a battering ram.

  I feel damaged every time I lift her. I feel wrong, void of instincts, lost at what to do with her. The insecurity grows every time I look into Simon’s eyes and see his disappointment.

  It’s only been a week, but I think I hate her.

  I wake up in the small guest room, the room hot. I kick off the blankets, my mouth cottony and metallic, my headache painfully strong. Rolling out of the twin bed, I move over to my bag, my limbs slow as I pull on my jeans and a fresh shirt, not bothering with clean underwear or a bra. The house is quiet and I brush my teeth, then head downstairs.

  His house is an odd mix of clean and dirty. The bathrooms sparkle, the scent of bleach in the air, the mirrors spot-free, the grout freshly scrubbed. But in the main rooms, there is clutter—stacks of mail and odd items, a dead light bulb left out on the counter, oily fingertips along the edge of a table, filthy boots left by a chair. I walk down the staircase, my eyes moving over the framed photos, and I stop at a larger frame, a single page surrounded by a thick mat, a page of stationary, with the copy of a check below it. It’s an acceptance letter, the publisher’s seal at the top of the page, a flourished signature below two paragraphs of congratulatory communication. The book name is there. MEMPHIS BRIDE. He had framed it, or his wife had, like a proud parent with a certificate of achievement poster. Thousands of books were bought each year. Thousands of checks written, thousands of dreams begun. Probably thousands of framed items like this. Was it my fault his had temporarily died? Without my letter to his editor, would he be writing contemporary fiction? Creating books he actually respects?

  I take another step and move past it. In our industry, the work speaks for us. It’s not all my fault. I write scathing blurbs all of the time, for books that still end up published. If it had been a strong enough novel, my opinion wouldn’t have mattered.

  I continue down the staircase, following its curve into the foyer. There is a note stuck to the front door.

  I’m at the barn. There’s some food in the kitchen. Royce can get you over if you want to see the baby.

  I leave the note and move to the kitchen. I grab a banana from a bowl on the counter, peeling it back as I take a leisurely tour of the first floor. It’s spacious, everything made for a giant. The wide leather couch straight out of an Architectural Digest catalogue. The thick coffee table made from a section of tree trunk. It’s knick-knack-free, everything a mix of leather, wood, and photos. Someone in the family is a photographer. There is a huge print of a pasture, the vivid color of a setting sun giving warmth to the entire room. I wander into another room and see a series of black and white photos, close-ups of Mark’s hands, a sway-back horse, and one of his daughter’s smile. I look away, and realize I am in his office, a printer in one corner, a desk before me, filled with stacks of pages. Along the far wall, below a long window, there are bound manuscripts, over twenty of them, and I scan the titles, hunting for, and not finding, the doomed Memphis Bride. I don’t look at the walls, to see if my framed letter is there. I believe him when he says it is brutal. I don’t need proof of that.

  The dining room and sunroom bore me, and I head back upstairs, skipping my guest room, and only giving his daughter’s room a cursory glance. The next room is gold—a library, complete with floor to ceiling bookshelves, a rolling ladder, and inset lighting. There is a large chair and a couch, both the sort that you could sink into and never leave. I should have created a room like this in our house. We bought five thousand square feet and wasted it on Simon’s larks. A workout room. A media room. Two guest rooms that were never used. A formal dining room. Why hadn’t I taken a larger piece of it? Why hadn’t I insisted on something like this? And later—once they were gone and I was alone, why hadn’t I created it for myself? But I know the answer to that. I didn’t create it afterwards because I hadn’t deserved it. It would have felt tainted and selfish.

  His books are organized by author, and all of the greats are here. I don’t touch anything, the banana still in hand, my respect for his books greater than for door handles and light switches. I find my section, and am pleased to see all of my titles here, their spines creased from reading. Aside from me, there is little romance, his tastes tending to classics and contemporary fiction. I smile at a few of the names and lift my chin, my gaze moving up the shelves, itching in my desire to climb the ladder and properly peruse his collection. There is a sharp pain at the base of my neck and I carefully drop my head, stepping back. I’m overdue for a pain pill and abandon my snooping, heading downstairs and toward my medicine.

  The meds taste terrible, the kind of chalky pills that instantly melt a little on your tongue, before you get a chance to drink any water. I take two, plus the anti-nausea, and glance out the window above the sink. Mark’s Bronco is there, a thin man standing near it, a phone to his ear, cigarette in hand. It’s the man from last night, the one who works for Mark. Royce.

  Something bumps in the living room, and I turn, relaxing when I see his dog trotting toward me, his tail hitting everything he passes, a thump-thump-thump that could destroy an entire china shop. He smiles at me, his body sidling up and leaning against me, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth as he looks up. He swings his tail and his entire body flexes from the action. “Hey bud.” I don’t want to pet him. He looks dirty, and his trot through the house has left a path of wet paw prints. He rests his full weight against my shin, and lifts one paw as if I understand what that means. Simon once wanted an Akita, some giant bear-hunting dog that sheds like a cheap sweater and slobbers a gallon a day. I had refused, he had gotten belligerent, and somehow, two weeks and a dozen arguments later, we compromised and he had a new motorcycle. That was how most of our arguments worked. Part of me suspects he never even wanted a dog, the motorcycle his end goal, the entire thing a psychological game I’d lost.

  A low whine comes and I look back down, his brown eyes minutely moving as he searches my face. Despite myself, I reach down and carefully pat his head. As an adult, I’ve always considered dogs in the same way that I did children: slobbery noise-machines that require an enormous amount of effort. I had been wrong about children. While Bethany, especially at the beginning, had been a nonstop drain of time and energy, she had been worth it. A million times worth it.

  This dog wouldn’t have been worth it. Now he is lying down, right on top of my shoes, his belly arched towards me, his paw still stretched up, hanging in the air. His mouth is open in a ridiculous expression of joy, as if this act—restricting my movement—is cause for celebration. I pry a foot out from his heavy body and step to one side, his head lifting to watch as I make my escape.

  I am heading to the front door when I see the pages. They sit on the dining room table where we ate last night, a small plate on top of them, one with a muffin and banana on it. I pause, sidestepping until I am in front of the stack.

  CHAPTER FIVE in bold letters on the top of the first page. New content. Before I had trudged up the stairs and into bed, I’d outlined a few chapters, had written a page or two of content and left it on the counter. He must have stayed up, read it over, and dove in. I move aside the plate, and think back over our conversations in that barn, my hand-written additions where those had left off—a lot of ground to cover. I flip through the pages. Twenty, if not more. It would have taken me two weeks, and he did it in hours. I pull back the chair and sit.

  Moving the pages toward me, I barely notice the brush of the dog’s body as he settles at my feet. The first pages cover Bethany’s birth, and I mark up several passages, the muffin disappearing as I add in comments and move through the scene of bringing her home. Mark’s writing is improving, and I can almost feel my nerves when we made it home, my hands shaking as I gripped the edge of her crib, Simon’s enthusiasm annoying in its confidence. Why had I been the only one afraid? Why had I been the only one with regret?

  I read further.


  All of my emotions, they are on these pages. They are raw and real, and I regret my sexist opinion that—because he was a man—he wouldn’t understand. A knot of anxiety worsens as I read, old emotions rushing back, all the conflict I had struggled with, along with the terrible spite I’d had for my daughter.

  I push aside the muffin wrapper and force myself to turn the page.

  I step out of the house an older woman. Reliving those first months with Bethany had been hard, yet nothing compared with what’s to come. Royce gives me a ride to the barn, I pet a happy and healthy baby calf goodbye, and three hours later, I’m climbing back into the plane. I pause, one foot in, and take a moment to inhale the warm air, my muscles pleasantly tired from the exertions, my hair still carrying the scent of outdoors. There is part of me that doesn’t want to go home. I can imagine settling into this world, watching the leaves fall from the trees, writing in the mornings and spending afternoons in Mark’s library, working through his collection one hardcover at a time.

  I sit down and close the airplane’s door, struggling a little to lock it into place. When he steps in, the plane shifts, and I watch him go through a long process of flipping switches and checking off marks on a clipboard.

  “I read the new pages,” I say, once he is finished, the plane slowly easing forward, the propeller humming along.