Return to Tradd Street
“Sounds like fun.”
“I used to not think so, but I miss it now. It’s funny, isn’t it, how we don’t always know what we want until we think we’ve lost it?”
His smile was sad. “Yep. I know exactly what you mean.” His face became serious. “I actually had a piece of business to share with you, but it can wait if you’d prefer.”
I sat up. “If it’s about the DNA tests, I’d like to know now.”
He nodded. “I heard from the coroner’s office that the final reports should be ready in the next couple of weeks. I wanted to give you the heads-up so you can make sure your lawyer is available, just in case.”
Our eyes met. He didn’t need to elaborate.
He stood, then leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Congratulations, Melanie. I’m happy for you. For both of you.”
“Thank you, Thomas. You’ll make a great husband and father one day.”
“I hope so. But what are my chances of finding another beautiful woman with a quirky talent? Hey—what about your cousin Rebecca? Is she single?”
I almost choked. “Thomas—I said I liked you. I couldn’t do that to you. Besides, she’s engaged.”
He grinned. “It was worth a try. I’ll keep looking. And let me know if your sixth sense comes back. Not just because I need your help, but because I know how important it is to you.”
“I will—promise.”
We said good-bye and he left. I lay back against my pillows, listening to the soft breathing of my babies and thinking about Thomas’s words, wondering why it had taken me an entire lifetime to know that he was right.
CHAPTER 28
I awoke to the sound of a crying baby, jerking me out of a dream where I was on the swing in the garden and there were three empty cradles in front of me with the Louisa roses blooming from one of them.
I sat up, my left hand moving instinctively toward my abdomen. As usual, I was surprised to find it smaller—although not down to its prepregnancy size—as well as to feel the weight of Jack’s grandmother’s platinum wedding ring on my third finger. The twins had been home for more than two weeks, yet I still awoke each time with utter surprise and astonishment that this was my life.
Despite our new status as man and wife and parents, my relationship with Jack remained difficult to qualify, our emotions like a riptide under soft waves. But there was something about sleeping in the same bed with him, with our children nearby, that anchored whatever had been loose inside of me since I was a little girl. For now, as I was still recovering from my pregnancy and childbirth, it was enough.
“Mellie? What is it?” Jack’s voice wasn’t heavy with sleep, as if he’d been lying awake with his own thoughts.
“I heard a baby crying.”
He looked over the side of the bed where the two cradles my father had made rested next to each other. In the glow of the night-light, which was shaped like a crescent moon with a cow perpetually leaping over it, we could see the outlines of the babies sleeping on their backs, as we’d been instructed by our new pediatrician.
“It’s not one of ours,” I whispered.
General Lee, in his new sleeping spot between the cradles, lifted his head as if to tell me that all was well before resting it again on his outstretched paws. With a sigh, I settled back against Jack, resigned to yet another sleepless night.
Jack stroked my hair. “Go to sleep, Mellie. I’ll get up with the babies when they awaken and do diaper duty.”
“Are you going to breast-feed them, too?” I squinted at my new digital clock with bigger, glowing numbers I could read at all hours of the night. A necessity for breast-feeding mothers. “They’ll need to eat soon, so I’m just going to stay awake. It’s easier than being jerked out of a sound sleep again.”
He yawned. “I never thought it was possible to be this bushed. Babies should come with a warning label. Not that I would have been deterred, of course.”
Despite myself, I felt my eyelids beginning to droop. “It would have been helpful if they at least came with some kind of regular internal clock. JJ’s a champion eater and wants to eat all the time, but Sarah chooses her eating times at random. It’s exhausting.”
A soft cooing came from one of the cradles, and I smiled through my sleepiness at the sweet sound. “That’s Sarah. She’s always singing to herself. Maybe she’ll be a famous opera singer like her grandmother.”
“Umm,” Jack mumbled, already almost asleep.
I began to drift off myself, only to have my eyes shoot open again. I grabbed his arm. “Jack? Do you smell that?”
Half-asleep, he was already taking the covers off. “I’ll change them.”
I held him back. “No. Roses. I smell roses.”
He turned back to me, and I could hear his smile in his voice. “It’s come back. Your gift is back.”
“At least part of it. I still don’t know if I can see them yet.”
We both sat up against the headboard, our gazes focused on the cradle where Sarah lay kicking her tiny hands and feet beneath her pink blanket, her newborn gaze riveted on movement above her. The night-light dimmed, as if something translucent had passed between me and her cradle. I focused harder, my gaze traveling to the spot where Sarah was looking, sucking in my breath when I realized I was staring at the shadowed outline of a woman wearing a rose in her blunt-cut hair.
“Louisa?” I whispered.
As soon as the word was out of my mouth, she vanished, making me wonder whether she’d even been there at all.
“Why is she here?” Jack asked, both of us on alert as Sarah began to quiet now that her entertainment had been taken away.
“Because she thinks we still need her.” I slid from the bed and reswaddled Sarah in her pink blanket, wondering how it had all become untucked.
I felt Jack’s eyes on me in the darkness. “Because of everything still being so unsettled?”
Because I’m still not sure how you really feel about me. “Yes. Because of the house. We’re all in limbo right now, and the other ghost is still trying to stake her claim.” I waved my hand in the direction of the bathroom, where, despite my scrubbing with various cleaning products, the word “Mine” still showed up every time hot water was used.
“Do you think Sarah might have inherited more than her singing voice from your mother?”
My eyes widened in alarm. “It does run in our family through the females, so it’s a possibility, I guess.” I continued to stare into the darkness, not sure how I felt about it. “But JJ’s such a sound sleeper; he could be seeing them, too, if he were ever awake longer than it takes to fill his tank with milk.”
My phone alarm buzzed on my nightstand and I picked it up to silence it. “It’s time to feed them.”
Jack leaned over the side of the bed to get a better view of the babies. “But they’re both sound asleep.”
“I know. But I’m trying to get them on a feeding schedule, and in the first few weeks it should be every four hours. I read that in one of the parenting books you bought for me.”
“But they’re sleeping,” he repeated, emphasizing the last word in case I hadn’t understood it the first time. “Besides, I think the every-four-hours schedule is for bottle-fed babies. Breast-fed babies are supposed to eat on demand.”
“How am I supposed to get them on any kind of schedule if I feed them whenever they want—which is never at the same time for both of them?”
He massaged the back of my neck with strong fingers, making me almost forget what we were discussing. I leaned toward him, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to tell me what I was so desperate to hear. But when he finally said something, my shoulders slumped. “They’re only two weeks old, Mellie. I don’t think the fact that they’re not on a schedule yet will mean they won’t get into college. Besides, there’s just something inherently wrong about waking a sleeping baby.”
Still weighing my options, I looked down at my phone and saw that I had two text messages that had arrived the previou
s evening and gone unnoticed. Nobody called me anymore, as if they were afraid they’d wake me up, or the babies—which was a near impossibility, seeing as it was next to hopeless to awaken JJ, Sarah was too content to be disturbed by the sound of a ringing phone, and I was never asleep anyway.
“I have texts from both Yvonne and Detective Riley.”
Jack moved up behind me to see. “What does Yvonne say?”
I handed the phone to him. “I can’t read those tiny letters.”
“I told you to go into settings and change the font size. Do you want me to do it for you?”
I set my chin, making me think of my little Sarah when she didn’t feel like eating. “I’m perfectly capable of changing my settings. I just prefer not to.”
He pressed his lips against the back of my neck, reminding every single nerve ending in my body that I was still a woman and that his effect on me had not changed, despite the fact that I was only two weeks postpartum. “You’re so cute when you’re being vain, Mellie. But you look adorable in your glasses, too.”
“Just read the text, please.”
He took the phone from me. “You know, they say that your eyesight goes downhill once you hit forty. I’m glad I’ve still got a couple years to go.”
I elbowed him, but his quick reflexes saved his abdomen from a bruising. “Read,” I repeated.
He was silent for a moment as he read the screen. “This is amazing.”
“What is?”
“That Yvonne can text so well. There’s not a single mistake.”
“Jack, please! What did she say?”
“That she’s found information on Charlotte Pringle and to call her when you get her message. I’m assuming she thought you’d get the message before three o’clock in the morning.”
“Great—now I definitely won’t be able to sleep, because I’m too excited to hear what she found. What about Thomas—what does he say?”
He read the screen in silence, then slowly lowered the phone. I felt his eyes on me, but he didn’t say anything.
“Jack, what is it?”
“He has the DNA report, and he can bring it by tomorrow. Give him a call first thing to let him know what time.” He paused. “He said you’ll want your lawyer here, too.”
“No,” I said, unaware that I’d spoken out loud until Jack’s arms came around me, taking away some of my anxiety.
He spoke softly into my ear. “We’re a team, remember? And whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”
My heart contracted and then expanded, as if absorbing grief and happiness simultaneously had left it confused.
I nodded against his chest, where I stayed until we both became aware of Sarah cooing again as the scent of roses drifted from the floor to the tall ceilings, reminding us that there were more than just two players on our team.
CHAPTER 29
Thomas rang the doorbell promptly at nine o’clock the following morning, my lawyer arriving behind him as I opened the door.
Thomas greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. “Melanie—you look wonderful!”
“You’re only saying that because you’ve never seen me with a waist before. And I’m wearing under-eye concealer. Otherwise you might be leaping off the piazza into traffic, screaming that you’ve seen a ghost.”
He winked at my reference to spirits, then walked into the house as I greeted my lawyer. Sterling Zerbe was a tall man in his mid to late forties, with prematurely white hair and the build of a former football player—which my dad said he was. Despite their age difference, he and my father had bonded over their love of their home city of Charleston while stationed with the army in Germany.
He kissed me on the cheek. “When do I get to meet the babies?” he asked.
“They’re sleeping right now, but I can pretty much guarantee that one of them will awaken within the hour, if only because on the schedule I’ve made for them they’re not supposed to want to eat for another three.”
He gave me a confused smile and a nod before walking into the foyer.
Jack shook hands with both men, then led them into the parlor, where Mrs. Houlihan had set out coffee and doughnuts. I noticed a separate tray set next to the baby monitor and apparently meant for the breast-feeding mother among us. It contained a tall crystal glass of water with fresh lemon and an unappetizing bran muffin. Next to the doughnuts, it stood out like Cinderella with her ugly stepsisters. Thanks to Jack Junior and his voracious eating habits, I could eat as many calories as I liked. Unfortunately, those calories had to come from sources that were scrutinized and approved by my personal food-police squad.
As soon as Thomas sat down, he reached for one of the doughnuts and took a bite. He chewed slowly, his eyes closed. “These have to be from Glazed Gourmet on King Street. Best doughnuts on the planet. And believe me—I’m a policeman, so I know doughnuts.”
“Naturally,” said Jack, ignoring the sweet pastries and going right for the coffee.
I closed my eyes and sniffed the coffee, remembering what it had once been like to drink large quantities of caffeine without anybody complaining. I picked up my muffin and bit into it, staring at the doughnuts while I chewed, and trying to pretend I was eating something other than sand. It didn’t work.
“So,” Thomas said, wiping crumbs from his mouth with a napkin. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
Sterling and I each pulled out notebooks and pens, while Thomas reached into the briefcase he’d brought with him. Jack sat back with a fresh cup of coffee and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee.
Thomas moved aside plates and cups and spread a few papers on the coffee table in front of him. “I spent a lot of time talking with a DNA expert to make sure I understood it all enough to be able to explain it without a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo.”
He looked up and smiled at me, but it did nothing to reassure me. I sat on the edge of my seat, my pen in hand, fighting the urge to start making a plan-of-action spreadsheet. It was hard not being in control of this situation, the feeling bringing me back to that place I’d been as a young girl, when I’d awakened to find my mother gone.
Thomas continued. “I’m just going to lay it all out and explain what is in the report, and then open it up for questions. Anything I can’t answer, I promise to find the answer for you. So,” he said, clamping his hands down on his knees as if he were a teacher getting ready for story time. “They were able to confirm their original finding that the skeletal remains were those of a male. This meant that they were able to compare the Y chromosome in the DNA of the remains to those of Mr. Vanderhorst and Mr. Gilbert.” He paused, his gaze sliding to me. “There was a match.” He cleared his throat. “That means that all three males were related on their paternal side.”
My eyes met Jack’s briefly before I turned back to Thomas. “So Nevin Vanderhorst and George Gilbert are related. And so is the baby found in the foundation.”
“Yes, it would appear so. An analysis of the christening gown and bonnet found with the remains estimates that they were made near the beginning of the eighteenth century, while the actual remains are approximately fifty years younger, sometime in the mid-to-late–eighteen hundreds range. In addition, an examination of the skull revealed that the anterior fontanel had not been closed, indicating that the baby was less than two years old at the time of death, with further skeletal examination showing that it was most likely a newborn.”
A heavy stone seemed to lodge itself in the middle of my chest. “So it’s probable that what Bridget Monahan Gilbert said is true.” I hesitated, wanting to make sure that my voice was strong when I spoke again. “That William had a twin brother, Cornelius, who was taken up north and raised by another family. And that George Gilbert is one of his descendants. A Vanderhorst heir.” I looked at Sterling Zerbe, who was busily scratching notes on his notepad.
He stopped writing and looked at me, his expression grave. “That’s certainly the most plausible explanation one can conclude from the scientific evide
nce, and most likely the angle the Gilberts will be taking if they take their case to court. I have to admit, the evidence is pretty compelling, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have an argument. The house belonged to Mr. Vanderhorst and he left it to you in his will. There is no clear-cut winner or loser here.” Turning back to Thomas, he asked, “Is there anything else?”
“Oh, yes. And here’s where it gets interesting. They were also able to extract mitochondrial DNA from the skeletal remains as well as from Mr. Vanderhorst—that’s the DNA that’s passed down on the maternal side. There was no mitochondrial match between Mr. Vanderhorst and the remains—meaning their relationship is only on the paternal side. We also compared it to Mr. Gilbert’s.”
“And?” I asked, my voice sounding much stronger than I felt.
“His mitochondrial DNA matched that found in the remains, but not Mr. Vanderhorst’s.”
I put my pen down and rubbed my hands over my tired eyes, wondering whether it was the lack of sleep that was making all of this so hard to comprehend. “So what does all of this mean?”
Thomas slid a piece of paper in my direction, then turned it around so it was facing me. It was a chart with three boxes at the top. The first was labeled with the single word remains, the second one Nevin Vanderhorst, and the third George/Cornelius, with arrows connecting the boxes drawn in two different colors. The color scheme was explained at the bottom, with little colored squares indicating that red was mitochondrial DNA and yellow the Y chromosome. It was like something I might have drawn if I’d understood half of what Thomas had just told us.
Despite the churning in my stomach, I couldn’t help but smile at him and wonder whether maybe we should have our DNA tested to see whether we might have somehow been separated at birth.
I placed my index finger on the chart—the nail unvarnished and clipped short so that I wouldn’t scratch delicate skin when changing diapers—and followed the red and yellow lines that led from the remains-labeled box to the one labeled Cornelius. “So these two are connected on both their mother’s and father’s side. We also know that Cornelius was born in 1860, and the remains are approximately from that time period, too. Meaning they could be full brothers.”