Southern Seduction (61 page)

I smile and laugh as we accept congratulations and hugs from the small group, and I even hug Vi’s momma without anger. The woman has her flaws, but she’s the only momma Vi’s got and someday, she’ll be grandmother to our children.

Our small reception is just perfect for us, right on down to Daisy pullin’ my truck up and playing Violet’s and my song, Blake Shelton’s
‘Mine Would Be You.’
Now more than ever, the words ring true.

Baby, if I had to choose

My best day ever

My finest hour,

My wildest dream come true

Mine would be you

After the dance is finished and our little cake is cut, Uncle Zeke and Vi’s granddaddy pull us aside. I’m assuming it’s to gloat about how their plan worked. As far as I am concerned, they can gloat away. What they did worked, and I am thankful.

Putting one arm around me and one around Vi, Uncle Zeke turns and gives me a smile. “Youngn’s, I got somethin’ to tell ya. That whole will wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Your granddaddy’s will was written four years ago and it hasn’t changed. He left everything to you and Vi, free and clear.”

My mouth opens in stunned disbelief for about two seconds before I start laughing. “So the whole thing was a lie?”

Uncle Jonah lets out a laugh before he smiles at me and nods. Gesturing at Uncle Zeke he says, “Before Weston got called home, the three of us came up with what your granddaddy called the fail safe plan. We knew you were still in love with Vi, but we also knew you were angry. Weston knew he wasn’t going to be here to support and help you through your anger, and it was tearin’ him up real bad to think that there was a chance that you two wouldn’t get back together. He commented to Zeke and me that he wished he could make it a rule in his will… and one thing led to another.”

With Zeke’s arm still around her, Violet turns and gives him a big kiss on the cheek before running into her grandfather’s arms. Over and over again she says thank you. I’m feelin’ pretty darn emotional myself, so I turn to Zeke and give the old coot a big hug. I’m surprised but happy when he hugs me back—Uncle Zeke’s never been overly affectionate. After we finish hugging, I go right to Uncle Jonah and give him one hell of a thank you hug as well, this hug shared with Vi who is still thanking him for always being there for her.

After everyone has gone and the two of us are walkin’ back to the ranch house hand in hand, we’re both still laughing about how crafty and smart those old men were. That day in Uncle Zeke’s office when he told me the ‘conditions’ of my granddaddy’s will, I thought I was doomed. Now, I see that he saw his one last chance to make sure that Vi and I wound up together and he took it. What I was so sure was going to be so hard to handle actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened.

The End

I have seen and talked to the dead forever, more specifically to ghosts of the Jean family lineage. In fact, I, Matilda Jean’s (Maddie to my friends) very first conversation was with great aunt Tilly from mom’s side who died in 1920 at the age of fifteen. It was a month after my third birthday. You know the age where things start sticking and you start forming memories you can recall. I remember that day because I wanted to play with my brother, Brayden, but he was in his tree fort. Girls weren’t allowed in there. Especially, red-headed, hazel-eyed, freckle-faced three year olds named Matilda Jean.

There I was, standing on the other side of Brayden’s tree fort door, begging to be let in and him saying, “No, you have to know the password,” over and over in a teasing lilt. That’s when great aunt Tilly showed up and whispered in my ear, “Turkey.”

Me, looking at aunt Tilly as nothing more than the bestest friend in the world, repeated “Turkey,” aloud. Brayden’s freckled face came peering out the fort window. Blue eyes wide as he looked down on me and said, “What’d you say?”

“Turkey,” I repeated, though back then it sounded more like “thurchey.”

Brayden shook his head and disappeared back inside. A second later metal was rattling while my brother’s exasperated voice was yelling, “Which one of you told her the password? I gotta let her in ‘cuz I promised my mom I would if she got the word right.”

After that, seeing deceased members of the Jean family tree became a regular occurrence for me. Charlene Jean, my mom, told me that it was the voodoo blood still running through the Jean women’s veins generations later which allowed me to communicate with my relatives from beyond the grave.

Cousin Henry came around whenever I watched movies, particularly Shakespeare ones. He’d sit down beside me and start reciting lines. Great Grandma Gertrude usually came around when there was baking to be done. And great Aunt Tilly always showed up to play games or help with reading.

Whether it was voodoo blood in my veins or not, whatever the reason for my ability, it was definitely tied to the Jean’s genes because all the dead ancestors I’d encountered hung from the Jean branch. Most of them were a friendly sort. A bit sad at times, but they came around to help anyway, like guardian angels or something. The only relative I hated stopping by was Grandpa Jack, my mom’s dad, because he was, as Gram would say, an ornery ass, a particular trait death enhanced in him.

This ability of seeing ghosts, which made me a superhero in elementary school, a freak in middle school, and an outcast by high school, was now my identity. I wore it like a badge of honor, an honor I didn’t share with anyone anymore. Though I liked being different, I had no desire to fit in and follow the norm, didn’t mean I advertised my difference.

But … my sixth sense was also the reason why two months ago, exactly one day after my twentieth birthday, I awoke to my mom in the middle of the night at my best friend Tanya’s house. She was sitting at the foot of the bed rubbing my feet like she did when I was little. It didn’t startle me, the foot rubbing was soothing, it actually took me a whole ten minutes of conversation with mom before I remembered I was at Tanya’s and not at my own home.

It was a full ten minutes more, before the weight of it sunk in … I was talking to my mom’s ghost. She’d fallen asleep behind the wheel on the 82 drove off the edge and crashed into an eighteen-wheeler on a street below. While medics tried to resuscitate her body, her spirit came to me. She was saying goodbye for good.

“Seriously, Gram, what’s the point? If Uncle Ollie couldn’t be bothered to be at mom’s funeral then why in the world are we bothering to bring him her stuff? It’s not like he cares.”
Gram glanced over at me, one eye squinted like she was sucking on a salt chip, before looking back at the road. “This was your momma’s last wish and by God we will do it.”
“Why do you care? Why do you want to fulfill my mom’s last request, she wasn’t your daughter?”

“Matilda Jean Scott, you watch your mouth,” Gram made the sign of the cross over her chest, “there are two rules you need to know, never speak ill of the dead and always satisfy their last request or else they won’t find peace on the other side and they’ll pull a poltergeist on you.”

Twenty years and Gram still didn’t acknowledge that Jean women, including me, spoke to the dead regularly. She refused to believe my abilities were real and instead lived under the guise I had imaginary friends stemming from an overactive imagination and two indulgent parents. “Um, Gram—”

“Maddie Jean don’t you dare start up again with all that voodoo mumbo jumbo. You know I don’t like it. We’re doing this because it’s important to your momma, who was important to you and Brayden and you and Brayden are important to me.”

Gram did another sign of the cross over her heart and started fidgeting with her CB radio system next to the steering wheel. It was Gram’s polite way of saying conversation over. Gram wanted to satisfy Charlene Jean’s last wish, fine. Why in the hell did she drag me along to do it? This pointless and stupid road trip meant I had to cancel a photography class I’d planned on taking for over six months. A class I was looking forward to. Worse, U-Tech wouldn’t refund the money I’d already paid, putting me out a full fifteen-hundred bucks. I sighed and sank back into my chair.

Could this fucking RV go any slower?

I chewed on my thumbnail as desert whipped past my passenger window. I leaned my head on the glass and sighed. Started sliding my feet back and forth before fidgeting with air vents on the dash. I sighed again, readjusted my feet. Crossed and uncrossed my legs. Sat indian style. Put my feet back on the floor. Moved the arm rest up and down. Opened the glove box. Closed it. Sighed again. Swiveled my captains chair back and forth then started tapping out a tune with my feet. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

“I’m hungry, make me a sandwich,” Gram said, never taking her eyes from the road, “and while you’re at it make sure Dexter’s sleeping nicely in his cat carrier, maybe give him a Frisky.”

“Fine,” I said.

I got up and headed back to the tiny kitchen trying to keep my footing as the motorhome swayed like we were on a boat in the ocean and not creeping—top speed in this boat was sixty-five mph—along I-10.

There on the table next to the counter was a box. Ordinary brown packing box taped shut. It wasn’t a very large box. No bigger than a shoebox and it was heavy, like a bowling ball was inside. Was my mom’s last wish that Uncle Ollie take up bowling? I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was so important that my mom specified in her will nobody but Uncle Ollie was to open it. Good old Uncle Ollie, mom’s older brother, more like stupid Uncle Ollie, one of only two siblings mom had, and the only sibling not at her funeral. Couldn’t be bothered with trivial things like burying his baby sister.

Even aunt Jackie, the eldest Jean daughter, was there. Her and mom weren’t even close. They hadn’t talked or seen each other in almost ten years, but Jackie managed to be at the funeral. Yet, Uncle Ollie, who mom was super close to—he was mine and Brayden’s godfather—wasn’t. He went on all our family vacations, even when dad and mom were still together. In fact, Uncle Ollie was in every happy memory I could recall from childhood and even that wasn’t enough to get him to the service. Didn’t he want to say goodbye or at least be there for Brayden and me?