In the Blink of an Eye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

“How do you know?” Rupert asked. “Did he tell you? Did somebody tell you?”

  “I just know,” his mother said sadly.

  They lived with friends for a while, and with an old aunt of Mother’s who smelled bad and had a tiny apartment infested with cockroaches.

  Then Mother got sick.

  It’s all a blur, Mother dying. Rupert knows the basics: she died one August night on his aunt’s sofa, and he was with her when it happened.

  He was there . . . but he doesn’t remember. He has never let himself remember the details.

  After Mother died, he was taken to a place for orphans. St Bertrand’s Home for Boys was a depressing, frightening, Gothic structure somewhere above the Hudson River—New Jersey, or Rockland County—Rupert never knew where, and later, when he was older, he never felt the need to find out.

  Wade came along when Rupert was on the verge of adolescence, long since resigned to the fact that he would spend the rest of his childhood in that gloomy institution.

  Wade was an old friend of Father’s. He told Rupert that his father was dead. And Rupert realized he had already known that.

  Father was murdered, Wade said, by somebody who thought Father had stolen money from him.

  Rupert never asked Wade whether his father really had stolen the money. He knew the truth about that, too. Instinctively, he understood that his father’s “business” was shady, conducted on the fringes of legality.

  Father was a con man, and so was Wade.

  Later, Rupert learned why Wade didn’t track him down earlier. It was because he was in prison for several years, serving time on a swindling charge.

  But all that ever mattered to Rupert was that Wade finally came, and that he said Rupert could live with him.

  Wade took him away from St. Bertrand’s. He didn’t bring him home, because Wade didn’t have a home. He lived on the road. Rupert didn’t mind that at first. Not for a long time. Not until he felt the urge to settle down, and went back to the Bronx, moved into that tiny apartment, and met Nan.

  Clinging to her now, awash in grief, Rupert can no longer hold it in. He’s being strangled by emotion, feels it rising in his throat, threatening to spill over.

  And then it does.

  A choked sob escapes him.

  The foreign, guttural sound startles him into awareness. He clamps his mouth shut, takes a deep breath. And then another.

  He will not cry.

  He will not let go.

  He will be strong, and he will do what has to be done, just as he always has.

  PAINE GENTLY LAYS Dulcie on the bed in Julia’s room. He covers her with the afghan Julia gave him—a heavy yarn one that somebody undoubtedly crocheted by hand. As he tiptoes out of the room, he finds himself looking around, out of curiosity. There is little to see in the light that spills in from the hall: old, mismatched furniture, sheer curtains, a couple of braided rugs on the scarred hardwood floor.

  Beside the door is an old-fashioned high bureau. Julia’s grandmother’s dresser, he remembers. The one she says reeks of mothballs. Paine inhales deeply, but all he can smell is the faint herbal fragrance he has come to associate with Julia. He smiles. He likes the scent.

  A white lace-edged scarf is draped across the dresser top, and on it are several framed photographs.

  As he glances idly at them, it occurs to Paine that all of the pictures show women: women alone, in posed portraits typical of a bygone era, and women in snapshots, standing together. He recalls Julia telling him that she was raised by her grandmother, who was widowed young, and by her mother, who never married her father—“whoever he was,” Julia added, with a trace of bitterness.

  “You mean you never knew your dad?”

  “Let’s just say that my mother has had quite a few boyfriends. Obviously one of them got her pregnant almost thirty years ago—and she decided that I’d be better off not even knowing who he was. In fact, I doubt he even knows I exist.”

  Paine remembers noticing the hurt on Julia’s face when she said that. Now he’s struck anew by how that must have hurt her growing up. Just looking at her collection of photos, anyone would be struck by the obvious absence of any male influence in Julia’s life.

  Aside from Andy, of course. Not that there are any photos of him in evidence.

  For some reason, Paine is pleased by this. He doesn’t think much of Andy Doyle and wonders, not for the first time, what Julia sees in him. There’s an air of self-centered arrogance about him that turned Paine off the first time he met him. But he must have his good points.

  After all, he most likely saved Dulcie’s life. And I didn’t even thank him, Paine realizes belatedly.

  He glances again at the photographs, zeroing in on one that ostensibly shows all three generations together: Julia, her mother, and her grandmother. Julia looks about eighteen in the photo: carefree and casual in jeans and sneakers, her short dark hair windswept Her grandmother, too—judging by her expression, her clothing, her no-frills appearance—appears to be laid-back and easygoing. But the woman between them bears no resemblance to either of them.

  Julia’s mother—assuming that’s she—stands carefully posed, her face expertly made up, her hair so obviously teased and sprayed that it looks like cotton candy. She’s dripping in costume jewelry and wears a bright pink suit with an ultrashort skirt that shows off a length of well-toned, stocking-clad leg in high-heeled pink pumps.

  Paine doesn’t like her on sight. No wonder Julia rarely seems to mention her—and when she does, it isn’t with affection.

  About to leave the room, Paine stops short, glimpsing a framed photo he didn’t notice until now.

  He picks it up, hands trembling slightly.

  Julia and Kristin, not more than twelve or thirteen years old, sit on a wooden pier. Both wear bathing suits: Julia’s athletic figure in a simple one-piece tank, Kristin’s precocious curves already filling out a pink bikini. Julia’s hair is damp and her legs dangle in the water, Kristin’s sun-streaked tresses are dry and neatly combed. Her knees are bent, with her arms wrapped around them and her feet firmly on the weathered planks of the dock. Both girls are grinning, as though sharing a private joke.

  Paine notices that Julia’s arm is wrapped around Kristin’s shoulders in an almost protective posture.

  Then he sees the red depth marker floating in the water in the background, DEPTH: 6 FEET.

  No wonder Kristin isn’t damp, as Julia is. No wonder her feet are on dry ground. No wonder Julia looks as though she’s poised to pull Kristin back on board if she should slip over the edge of the pier.

  The old, familiar image assaults him again. Kristin, struggling underwater. Panic rising, lungs filling . . .

  No. Stop.

  Paine places the frame back on the dresser and looks back at Dulcie, asleep on the bed. She never even woke up when he carried her into the house and up the stairs, with Julia guiding the way in whispers.

  He softly closes the door behind him and makes his way back down to the first floor. On this trip, he notices more about his surroundings—the peeling wallpaper, the water-stained ceiling, the shabby furniture. There is old-house charm, but the whole place could stand to be updated and renovated.

  Julia waits in the kitchen, pouring two cups of coffee from the pot she’s just brewed. She pours milk into both and hands him one, along with a sugar bowl.

  He smiles. “You remembered.”

  “The sugar? I just hope there’s enough in there. I don’t use it very often.”

  “There’s enough.” He stirs some into his coffee.

  “Let’s go into the living room,” Julia suggests, with a frustrated glance at the ceiling.

  He follows her gaze. Where the roof should be, there’s nothing but a length of plastic tarp. One corner flaps audibly in the slight breeze outside.

  “How long is it going to be like that?”

  “A few more days,” she replies. “Which is fine . . . as long as it doesn’t pour out again. Everything was damp in h
ere this morning. Have you heard the weather forecast, by any chance?”

  He shakes his head, following her into the front room. The weather is the last thing on his mind at this point.

  He doesn’t waste any time getting to the point. Seated beside her on an antique sofa, its seat too narrow to be comfortable, he says, “I came over, Julia, for a couple of reasons. I guess the most important one is to apologize for the way I yelled at you this afternoon.”

  She bows her head so that he can’t see her expression.

  “I didn’t mean to lash out that way,” he says. “It’s just that Dulcie . . . she’s all I have. Nothing is more important to me than my daughter. And when I thought about what could have happened to her . . . well, I guess I went off the deep end.”

  “I don’t blame you. I didn’t realize I shouldn’t have left her up there asleep while I was in the basement. It didn’t seem like that big a deal at the time. I kept checking on her, and she promised to stay in bed and wait for me if she woke up. Besides, I figured I could have heard her calling me if she needed me. I left the basement doors open, and her bedroom window was open, and it was almost directly above—”

  He curtails her guilt-ridden tirade with a brisk “I know all that. Look, Julia, it’s not like I stand over her bed every time she’s asleep. It’s not like I don’t let her out of my sight. I didn’t mean to blame you for doing something I very likely would have done myself. And I’m sorry. But . . . that’s not the only reason I’m here.”

  “It’s not?” She looks up at him, her eyes expectant. “Why are you here?”

  “Because I talked to Dulcie after you left with your—with Andy.” For some reason, he won’t let himself label him her boyfriend. And anyway, she never has.

  “Look, thank him for what he did when you see him, okay? For me. Thank him for me,” Paine says. “Because I didn’t think to do it when he was here, and the way I acted . . . well, I’m sure I must have come across as ungrateful, and I’m not. If it hadn’t been for that guy . . .”

  “I know.” She gives a slight shudder, holding her coffee cup steady in her lap with both hands.

  “Anyway,” Paine goes on, “Dulcie told me some things, and I don’t know what to make of them. I’m hoping . . . I thought maybe you could help.”

  “What kinds of things did she tell you?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Some of it I’ve heard before—the same stuff that I told you on Saturday. But now . . . she says you think her mother’s spirit is in the house. She says you think Kristin is there, and that you and Dulcie can see and hear—”

  “I can’t see her,” Julia interrupts. “Only Dulcie can.”

  “But . . . I just don’t get it. She’s blind, Julia. I know you tried to explain it before, and forgive me if I seem a little thick, because I’m trying really hard to understand. If all this spirit stuff is real—” Seeing her wary expression, he quickly shifts gears, asking simply, “How can she see anything?”

  “The best way to explain it, Paine, is that I’m clairaudient, but I don’t need my ears to hear what I hear. It comes from inside my head. The same is true with Dulcie’s clairvoyance. Whatever she’s seeing isn’t necessarily there, in front of her. If you or I were beside her, we quite possibly wouldn’t see the apparition.”

  “I’ve never seen a ghost in my life.”

  “And I have. But I don’t often connect with energy in a visual way. Your daughter seems to.”

  “How do we know it isn’t a figment of her imagination?”

  “We don’t.” Julia looks him in the eye. “But I strongly doubt that it is. I’ve felt the same energy, Paine, and I’ve heard it. I’ve seen her, too.”

  “And was it her? Kristin?”

  “The vision wasn’t very clear, and it only lasted an instant, but I did see blond hair.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “Not then. But once, when I asked the spirit to give me a name, I got a strong K sound at the beginning and an N at the end. The rest was garbled. But that isn’t unusual.”

  “So it sounded like it was saying its name is Kristin.”

  “It could have been. But I don’t . . . I can’t tell. I keep asking myself why, if it’s her, I can’t feel a strong sense of her.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Most likely because Kristin and I were virtual strangers in our adult lives, Paine. We once knew each other so intimately—more intimately than I’ve ever known another person in my life. She was like a sister to me.”

  He nods, recalling the framed photo upstairs. “But you grew apart.”

  “People do.” A faraway expression in her eyes gives way to something else. Something darker. “What is it that you want from me, Paine? Why are you here?”

  He opens his mouth to answer her, uncertain what he’s even going to say, but she doesn’t give him a chance. She goes on, “I’ve done everything you asked me to do. I stayed away from you after we first met. I came back when you asked me to, and I tried to assess Dulcie’s gift. I could have told you lots of things about her, things that you obviously decided you didn’t want to hear. Then I left today when you asked me to. Now you’re back.” Her voice wavers. “I just don’t know what you want.”

  “I’m sorry, Julia. I guess I want you to tell me that my daughter is okay. That she’s going to be okay. That . . . Look, when she climbs out a second-story window because a ghost tells her to—and she insists that the ghost is trying to save her from somebody who’s sneaking around our house—well, what the hell am I supposed to think? Either my daughter is losing her mind, or . . . or I am. Because that would mean that this is real. All of this stuff I never believed in. All of this stuff I swore was impossible.”

  “It’s real, Paine,” Julia says softly. She reaches out and touches his arm below the short sleeve of his T-shirt. “I’m positive it’s real.”

  A shiver slips down his spine. Mostly, because of dread that steals over him yet again. But there’s something else, too. Julia’s warm fingertips on his bare skin . . .

  When was the last time a woman touched him there? Anywhere?

  Until now, Paine has barely noticed the unfulfilled needs left by three years of self-imposed celibacy. But now is not the time to be seeing Julia as anything other than a friend. A friend whose help he desperately needs.

  “Julia,” he says, “Dulcie told me that the lady—the apparition—had long blond hair. And that she was covered in blood. On one side of her face. If it was Kristin . . . what does it mean?”

  “I don’t think . . .” Julia takes a deep breath. “I tried to tell you this before. The first night you were back—that I don’t think Kristin’s death was an accident, Paine. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that she was murdered.”

  Hearing Julia speak the words aloud with such conviction, Paine feels something snap inside. For the first time, he allows himself to accept his own suspicions as a probability. Miraculously, he doesn’t buckle beneath the weight. His voice is steady as he asks Julia, “But who here in Lily Dale would possibly want Kristin dead?”

  “Maybe when she was here, she got tangled up with some drug dealer,” Julia says. “I told you she changed right after she arrived. She was brooding about something.”

  Paine thinks back. “Maybe. But after rehab, she was committed to staying clean. She wanted to be a good mom to Dulcie. I can’t believe that within a day or two of flying back East she slipped that far. She was an addict, but . . .”

  Julia starts to speak, then breaks off, hesitating just long enough for Paine to look up sharply, realizing that she’s about to share something significant. “It could have been something else, Paine.”

  “Like what?”

  As he listens to Julia’s account of a long-ago Halloween night, he finds himself picturing the two little girls in the photo on Julia’s dresser. He can see them so clearly—Kristin, headstrong, yet oddly fragile; Julia, protective, sweetly nurturing.

  Paine real
izes that the first time Julia brought up the possibility that Kristin was psychically gifted, what bothered him most was that if it were true, Kristin kept it from him.

  Damn it. She kept so much of herself from him. That there was one more hidden element—such a significant element—angered him. And Paine took his anger out on Julia, since she was there and Kristin wasn’t.

  Now . . .

  Now that he’s set aside his skepticism and opened his mind to a realm of new possibilities . . .

  He finds himself treating Julia with new respect.

  “I think it’s important that Kristin said she saw something at the foot of the stairs, just where I have felt the energy strongest,” Julia tells him. “If it’s Kristin’s energy I’m feeling there now, then it makes sense that she’s drawn back to that spot because it had such an impact on her in life.”

  “What do you think she saw there?” Paine asks her.

  “Something that scared the hell out of her.”

  “A ghost,” he says flatly. “A lady ghost, since she asked you if you saw ‘her.’ ”

  “Most likely. My theory is that until that moment, Kristin never had a supernatural experience. Or if she did, there was nothing jarring enough to frighten her. But whatever she saw that night was disturbing enough for her to do her best to separate herself from Lily Dale and everyone in it.”

  “But she had no say in that. Her father bought a place in Florida when he made so much money off the book and became a celebrity. It wasn’t Kristin’s decision to go. And she came back here every summer with her parents.”

  Julia nods. “But it was never the same. She never seemed comfortable here again. I think maybe she was afraid of what would happen if she accepted her gift. I think she was afraid of what else she might see.”

  “She was upset when Iris bought the Biddles’ house,” Paine remembers suddenly. “Really upset. I remember her arguing with her mother on the phone when Iris told her about it and when she hung up, she became really withdrawn. She didn’t want her mother living there. She said it was because she didn’t think Iris could keep up a place like that on her own—she wanted her to buy a condo in a retirement community somewhere.”