Chapter 11 MJ #2
“But what do I do when I get to heaven?” MJ almost wailed, the heart of her question rising up. “Which one will be my husband?”
Gracie slipped her lip under her front tooth, visibly trying not to laugh.
“I’m serious, Gracie!”
“I know you are, but people do get married for a second time and you deserve love and I don’t think you’ll be punished in the afterlife if you love them both.”
MJ dropped her head back and closed her eyes. “And none of this is explaining what he’s trying to tell me every single night at three a.m.”
Gracie pulled into the lodge’s drive and took the van past the ski shed and up the narrow road that wound around all the cabins and past the woods.
“Where are you going?” MJ asked.
“Home to get that music box for you. I mean, maybe I only think it’s on my nightstand. Maybe Benny moved it to your apartment for some reason we don’t know. Maybe he hid it.”
“Why would he do that?”
She threw a look. “It’s Benny. He probably made a bet with Red. They get crazy, those two.”
Clinging to that hope, MJ nodded. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Because if that music box is here, then something otherworldly is playing the song every single night. Someone, not something.”
Gracie parked, turned off the van and reached for her seatbelt, looking hard at MJ.
“It’s probably your imagination, Mom. A guilty conscience that you shouldn’t have. If Matt is spectacular, if he makes you happy and whole and fills your life and your heart forever and ever, I guarantee you Dad wouldn’t mind that at all.”
MJ wasn’t so sure, but she just nodded and followed Gracie into the house. Red and Benny were both out, so they walked through the quiet rooms, up to the second floor.
Long ago, Gracie had moved into the main bedroom, the very room where Irene and Owen Starling had lived, then MJ and George. Now it was Gracie’s, charmingly redecorated with shiplap and flowered wallpaper, looking nothing like it had when MJ had slept there every night next to George.
Still, the room hit her hard. The light streaming through the sheers was…
familiar. Yes, the colors were brighter and younger, and the furniture was arranged differently, but this was the room where MJ had lived with and loved her husband.
Where she’d nursed a baby and heartaches, laughed into the wee hours with her partner, and cried into her pillow when he died.
And there, on top of the nightstand on the side where Gracie didn’t sleep, was a picture of George and…the music box.
“Goodness.” MJ walked around the bed and slowly dropped down, realizing that she was shaking a little as she reached for the box. “It is here.”
She lifted it, turning it over to read the inscription.
For MJ ~ You make my world wonderful. Love, George
She closed her eyes and remembered how pleased he’d been when he gave it to her, so thrilled to have found a music box that played their song at that cute little snow globe store in town.
She twisted the tiny key at the bottom, then grazed the blue flowers on a white enamel top with one fingertip. A little scared for reasons she didn’t quite understand, she slowly lifted the lid and heard the familiar strain that Louis Armstrong made famous.
“This isn’t what’s waking me every night,” she whispered, closing it again.
Gracie sat next to her on the bed, a gentle hand on MJ’s back. “Obviously, since it’s been here for six years.”
“The notes are the same, but the one I’m hearing is, like, a computer sound. I didn’t realize it until now, when I heard this.”
Gracie leaned back on her hands, thinking. “Could you have an alarm set on your phone or something in the kitchen? One of the appliances? Do you ever take your laptop up there?”
She shook her head. “No, and the sound is kind of muffled. It’s got to be…George.”
Gracie sighed. “How does that make you feel, Mom?”
“Guilty. Scared. Foolish.” She ground out the words. “Like your father is watching me and it’s very important that he wake me up and tell me that we had love, and this is…wrong.”
“Mom, Matt is a good man who clearly has strong feelings for you. He won millions and millions of dollars and gave it away to charities and causes—and Snowberry Lodge!”
MJ closed her eyes. He was a good man, but…
“Did you feel guilty before this started?”
“I was too busy wondering whether or not he’d come back,” she admitted.
“And when did this start?” Gracie asked. “The music, not the feelings.”
“The night Matt got here. The night of Cindy’s wedding. I’ve been sleeping in that apartment for months and never heard it. Then, it started and will not stop.”
“It started that night? The night he arrived?” The tone in Gracie’s voice was unmistakable.
“You think there’s a connection?” MJ asked.
“Well, it’s…a coincidence. But…” She made a face. “I just don’t believe Dad’s coming back to haunt you with music that would make you sad. Not only is it impossible, it’s not like him. He’d never hurt you.”
MJ nodded, then leaned into Gracie. “I’m really embarrassed at how this weird little thing has wrecked me. It’s kind of…ruining things with Matt.”
“Does he know?”
“No,” MJ said. “I don’t want him to think I’m off my rocker or…wallowing in guilt, which might make him back away. He’d probably think I’m scared or foolish.”
“Oh, Mom, no. I don’t see it that way at all. I mean, I get being a little scared of a new relationship—I’m petrified. But foolish? How?”
“I’m old to…have a crush,” she said.
“I don’t think crushes have an age range,” Gracie told her. “What, exactly, are you scared of?”
She bit her lip. “He wants to move here and buy a house. I don’t…know what to do about that.”
“You’ve never lived anywhere but Snowberry from the day you were born,” Gracie said. “Do you think if you got married and moved in with him, you’d be giving up…everything?”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “I don’t know.”
“Well, as far as the wake-up call, Mom? I think you have an issue—real or in your heart—and if this man is going to be your partner, he’s the person you should talk to. How he reacts will tell you a lot.”
“I guess.” MJ stroked the music box again and set it back down, next to George’s picture. She ran her finger over the frame and looked into his eyes, waiting for that kick of guilt, but feeling nothing but a deep, abiding love.
“You want to take the music box?” Gracie asked.
“You keep it, honey.” She stood up and sighed. “I’m glad to know it’s here. And I’ll find the right time and talk to Matt.”
For reasons she didn’t quite understand, she was dreading that conversation.