“I’d love that, but I need a shower first,” I said.
Ellen was exactly the person I wanted to talk to about last night—not the drawing, but what had happened with Peter. In a normal world, I would have rushed upstairs this morning to tell Maisie about it. I wondered if not having her around was going to become the new normal.
“I’ll be in my room,” she said. “Come and get me when you’re ready.”
I showered and dressed in a vintage 1950s cocktail dress that Ellen herself had gotten for me. I let my hair hang loose and put on the string of pearls that Iris had given me for my eighteenth birthday. After adding on a pair of ballet flats I had excavated from my closet, I felt much more girly than I had since I turned twelve and stopped wearing princess costumes for Halloween.
When I reached Ellen’s door, I could heard Wren’s voice from inside. I was about to knock and ask Ellen if she was ready, but the opportunity to eavesdrop on the two was too tempting. I strained to hear through the thick oak door.
“Maisie scared you.” Wren’s falsetto was as clear as a bell through the wood.
“Yes, she did,” Ellen replied, her voice more muffled.
“She scared me too,” Wren confessed, and I suspected that Ellen had pulled him close to comfort him in the ensuing silence.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, baby,” she said soothingly.
“I love you,” Wren piped. I wondered if it was possible for Wren to feel real emotions.
“I love you too, little man.” I bit my lip; she used to refer to Paul as her “little man.” It didn’t seem healthy for her to call Wren that.
“Is Maisie bad?”
“Why no, sweetheart,” Ellen said, sounding surprised by the question. “She’s young and confused. A lot of responsibility has fallen on her shoulders. But she’s not bad—far from it.”
“I think she is bad. She stole from Mercy,” my ears pricked up at this comment, and I leaned closer to the door. “The power didn’t want her, it wanted Mercy.”
I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud at the ridiculous notion that the power might have chosen me after ignoring me so completely for nearly twenty-one years. I doubted that it had suddenly changed its mind and elected me homecoming queen.
Ellen stayed silent for a few seconds. “Maisie isn’t bad,” she pronounced summarily. “She’s my baby niece. But I think you could be right. I don’t understand what went on last night, but my gut tells me that the right sister drew the red lot. I can’t explain it, but I’m certain that this isn’t as settled as Iris would like to think. Nothing was ever cut-and-dried with Emily, so I wouldn’t expect for anything to be cut-and-dried with her girls.”
“Why is your hand shaking like that?” Wren changed the subject while I was still trying to grapple with what my aunt had said.
“It’s nerves baby, just nerves,” Ellen replied.
“You’d feel better if you had a drink,” Wren said. My mouth gaped open.
“No. I need to keep the promises I’ve made to the family, to Mercy.”
“I won’t say anything. A little bit will help. It’s Maisie’s fault.” That little bastard. Was he just giving voice to Ellen’s own rationalizations, or was he afraid of losing his battery in the event that Ellen pulled herself together? I needed to talk to Iris and Oliver about him, and soon.
I tapped on the door, desperate to stop her before she gave in to Wren’s advice.
“Yes?” Ellen called out.
“It’s me,” I responded.
“It’s unlocked,” she said, and I tried the knob. When the door swung open, she was sitting alone at her dresser. “I’m almost ready,” she said. I suspected that Wren was still in the room but hiding himself from my view. I came in and stood behind her, looking at our combined reflections in the glass. She smiled at me and returned to her lip gloss. “What is it, sweetie?” she asked in mid-application.
I put my hands on her shoulders, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “It’s only that I believe in you. I really do.”
She smeared the gloss above her lip and reached for a tissue. Wiping away her error without comment, she reapplied the gloss, using the action to mask her shock. Turning to face me when she was done, she immediately changed the topic. “I sense something different about you today,” she said.
I felt a blush of warmth flush my cheeks—it wasn’t embarrassment, it was happiness. I smiled and sat on the edge of her bed. “Last night,” I began. “Peter and I—”
It was all I could manage to get out before Ellen rushed over to the bed and took me in her arms.
“I am so happy for you!” she said and then she paused, giving me a weighing look. “We are happy about this, right?”
I smiled and nodded my head yes. “Well, no wonder you’re glowing today. Tell me all about it—well, obviously not all about it,” she sputtered. “Oh, hell, just tell me you’re in love.”
She seemed so happy for me that I couldn’t bear to bring Jilo into the picture. “Yes,” I responded. “I am.”
“That should really help settle things with Jackson then,” Ellen said to herself. She shrugged when she realized that she’d said it out loud. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re right. This does help clarify our relationship,” I said. “I’m not like her that way, you know?” Ellen didn’t make the connection. “My mother that is. I don’t intentionally go after other women’s men.”
“Why sweetheart, I know you don’t!” she said. “Who has been telling you tales about Emily?”
“Iris said that she was worried that I had inherited the gene for man stealing,” I said, trying to make light of my concerns.
“Well pardon me, but Iris doesn’t have any idea what her fool mouth is saying. You are like your mother in many ways, but all of them good.” She put her arms around me and squeezed me tight.
“Tucker Perry said that my mother introduced him to Tillandsia,” I said. Ellen released me, her expression alarmed. “Is Tucker my father?”
“Dear God, no!” Ellen said.
“Then you know who my father is?”
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t. I really don’t.”
“Were there too many men to guess which?”
“I’m sorry. It’s true that Emily was a part of Tillandsia. And it’s true that she had many men in her life.” She bit her lip, then looked with narrowed eyes. “When were you talking to Tucker anyway?”
“He’s kind of been following me around lately,” I responded, searching Ellen’s eyes to see if Tucker’s stalking ways made her angry or jealous.
“I’m sorry he’s bothered you,” Ellen said. She looked away in shame. “I’ve told him that you and Maisie are strictly off limits unless he wants to end up like Wesley Espy and wear his genitalia for a boutonniere.” Wesley was a judge’s son who’d had an unfortunate taste for gangsters’ girlfriends. The fathers of Savannah’s daughters have been offering up his story as a cautionary tale to prom dates for going on eighty years. “I’ll see him tonight and set the record straight once and for all.”
