by Natalie Lund
Callie waited for her mother to wake—at least once—so they could collect some final words that they’d be able to repeat later to Toni and her mother’s friends. Something meaningful and thoughtful. But maybe Tassel lamps. Velvet chaise. Vases and all would have to be enough.
The nurse moved around, checking vitals, administering morphine. Callie’s mother didn’t appear to be struggling to breathe anymore. Instead her breaths were slow and shallow and, at times, barely visible.
“If you have anything to say,” the nurse prompted, “now would be the time.”
“I love you,” Callie whispered. The words were a handful of coins in her mouth—metallic and too large—but she forced them out anyway. Her father murmured the phrase too, like they were at Mass and she was the priest leading prayer. Her mother was the one who’d always known instinctively how to provide comfort, and Callie had never asked her how to be the one who lives. How many more times would Callie think, If only I’d asked my mother when I’d had the chance?
Callie knew there wouldn’t be another chance for granola and Gatorade and the shuffle of newspaper. For driving lessons. For her mother’s fingers in her hair. For her mother’s arm around her, dotted with waterfall spray. For her mother’s arm around her, period. For hearing her mother inhale when she arrived home, a breath as soft as an eyelash on Callie’s cheek.
And then quietly, “She’s gone.” The nurse’s words snapped Callie out of her thoughts. She sat fixed on her mother, hoping for something discernible: the light leaving her mother’s eyes or an exhalation that announced itself with a final rattle—like books said. Except there wasn’t a sign. So Callie listened to the house instead, hoping to hear a knock upstairs, a creak of its warm floors, a door slamming as her mother’s spirit passed through. But she heard only the storm.
What had the nurse seen that she hadn’t?
The nurse tugged on the sheet, straightening it needlessly. Callie wanted to push her hand away, to tell her they could do whatever else they needed to do on their own, which wasn’t the least bit true. Because Callie didn’t know what it was they needed to do. And because her mother was—had been—everything.
“Take as long as you need,” the nurse said, and left the room.
Her father started to cry and Callie felt her own tears respond, heavy in the corners of her eyes.
“I forgot to tell her we’d be okay,” he whispered. “She wanted to hear that.”
Callie nodded, understanding how regrets stung. But if Mrs. Vidal had been watching and listening all along, maybe her mother would be too.
“We’re going to be okay,” Callie said loudly.
Her father looked at her with deep sadness, but also gratitude. “We’re going to be okay,” he repeated.
“We’re going to be okay,” Callie said again.
“We’re going to be okay.”
“We’re going to be okay.”
Over and over. A prayer for her mother to hear.
WE WATCH IT SNOW
We watch it snow—flakes so tiny, they’re like dust in the air. It melts as soon as it settles on bare necks, black suit coats, gloves. Even on the casket, like this, too, is warm, as warm as the yawning hole beside it.
In our day, you’d stay for the lowering of the casket, you’d contribute your shovelful. Now it’s all machines, and so they usher the people away before the tamper chatters sledgehammer-loud, packing the dirt on top. We’ve watched our share of burials—our friends and lovers and parents joining us and wanting, as they always do, to see what they’ve left behind. Tearstained faces. A flat plane of packed dirt.
We watch as Callie stands beside her father, face drawn, eyes down, as everyone filters back to their cars. And we know it’s Eleanor: the reason Callie managed to be here, the reason she remains beside her father. And maybe it’s because of them, too: Joshua and Brenna hovering on the path nearby, hair shining from melted flakes, torn jeans damp at the hem. We know Callie trusts that they’re there. We can feel it, this trust. And we watch when her father beckons her toward the car, as one of Callie’s hands goes to the pearls at her neck and the other skims across the mahogany-colored casket—a touch so light, like the falling snow.
Well past midnight, hours after the funeral had ended, Callie padded down the maid’s staircase to the cellar. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t cry, either, because sobbing made too much noise and she needed to listen for her mother’s voice, or the shuffle of her feet, or her cough, door slam, knock. Callie wasn’t positive she’d be able to find her mother in the house, or that the spirit would even be her mother, but she had faith in her ability to recognize the sounds of her mother anywhere: the murmur of her voice from the other room, the unfolding of a newspaper, the jingle of her key chains.
The daytime hadn’t been much better. When she descended the stairs that morning, the wood was warm under her feet—despite the frost on the windowpanes. When she opened the front door to pick up the newspaper—her mother’s job for so many years—the house sighed contentedly. When Callie slammed the door, the windows chattered back at her. The house wasn’t just alive, it was desperate, like it already missed her mother’s attention and needed someone, anyone, to throw open its drapes and wax its floors. Callie would try her best.
Someday soon she and her father would have to go through each box and plastic bag in the cellar. They’d have to thin out the possessions for the move, sell the nineteenth-century chairs, donate the clothing. It would mean holding little pieces of her mother and deciding which ones could be preserved. She sank onto her knees next to the plastic bin with the photo albums. Upstairs was the historical society book that Callie had pulled off the top and shared with her mother on that last fully lucid day.
Callie closed her eyes and listened to the house. If she heard a sound, she planned to find the source and talk to it, starting with how very in love with her mother Callie was. The in made the love more active. It returned Callie to childhood, at church, when she’d had time to marvel at her mother, to trace every blue vein, to encircle every knobby knuckle with finger and thumb, to pinch and rub her pulled-dough earlobes. Except now Callie was marveling at what was inside. How her mother had been brave to fight. How she’d been brave to stop fighting. How she’d been wise to gather history beneath her roof and polish it gleaming. And patient enough to wait for Callie to accept her illness, never doubting, always offering Callie a way back.
Callie shoved a box off the sofa they’d moved downstairs from the living room to make room for the hospital bed. She brushed off the cushion, intending to sit—maybe even to sleep—while she waited for a sign from her mother.
Above, a door hinge creaked and something thudded. The hair prickled on the back of her neck. Was it her mother? There was a scraping sound, like a chair moving across the hardwood above Callie’s head, and disappointment flooded her, dense and sodden. Her mother, who loved this house more than almost anything, would never scrape the floors—even as a ghost.
Maybe it was Mrs. Vidal? Callie hadn’t seen her since before her mother died, and, given her unusual sense of timing, it wouldn’t be out of the question. But the light flicked on at the top of the stairs and Callie recognized her father’s shape.
“Hello?” he called down.
“It’s me, Dad.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. Maybe her father—the nonbeliever—was looking for her mother too. He trudged down the stairs. In the shadows, his face looked wan and weathered. His stubble was growing in blondish-red patches. His eyes were sunken behind hills of blue puffy skin. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Just thinking about Mom and how much she loved this house.”
At that, her father’s eyes fell to his slippers. “I’m failing.”
“Dad, stop. No, you’re not,” Callie said.
“There’s so much to do,” he said. Aunt Toni had taken care of the funeral
and the food train. But Callie knew there were more adult tasks her father was expected to do: paying the pile of bills, returning to work, making repairs to the house before they could sell.
“Can I do anything?” Callie asked.
He inhaled, and in the half-light, she saw his eyes glittering. He was shaking his head. “You’re doing great. You really are. You know that, right?”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her to his chest. “Though you have to go back to school at some point, my little slacker.”
“I will when you go back to work.”
He laughed. “It’s a deal.”
It was then, wrapped in her father’s arms, that Callie smelled her mother as discernibly as she’d smelled Celeste. The before smell, the one Callie had thought she’d lost. She felt her father inhale and knew that he smelled it too. Callie imagined the oxygen molecules carried by her blood, imagined her mother’s scent pumping through her heart. And she knew she’d carry her mom with her—wherever they moved.
Joshua wanted to visit Callie after school, but her text said she was on a long run to the next town and back. Selfishly, Joshua was disappointed that he had to take the bus. Tyler was riding too, and he didn’t make eye contact with Joshua, but he didn’t knee his seat either. Respectful distance was something Joshua could accept. He’d mourned the end of their friendship long ago.
Joshua and Ruthie walked home from the bus stop together. She was moping, pissed about some test she’d failed. “Mr. Hershel marks the whole problem wrong if you skip a step—even if you get the answer right. But, like, there are just some things I can do in my head. I shouldn’t be punished for that.”
Joshua nodded sympathetically, but his eyes were trained on Luke’s house. The FOR RENT sign was down and there was a moving van in the driveway. A thin woman with bobbed hair was standing in the yard, holding a phone to her ear. At her feet, a toddler in overalls pulled up handfuls of dead grass and stuffed them into his mouth. His face scrunched up in disgust, and the dirt and grass dribbled down his chin. Who were these people?
Joshua tried to remember the last time he’d seen Luke. After the trip to Indiana, they’d had that freak ice storm. That was the day Callie’s mom had died. Joshua’s mom had driven him over with a Tupperware of brownies, and he’d left them on the stoop with a drawing he made of Callie as Rogue. The next few days had been busy: a test, the second meeting of the LGBTQ+ club with Beau and Brenna, the funeral. Each night, he’d looked for the flicker of a candle across the street but had seen nothing.
“New neighbors,” Ruthie observed. “Wonder if they need a babysitter.”
“But he just got here,” Joshua said. Disappointment fluttered in his chest again. Finally he was beginning to understand Luke, to see what was under that muscle and pelt, and he was gone.
“You’re worrying me, ginger head.” Ruthie tugged at his elbow and dragged them toward the driveway.
“Look, just tell Mom I’m going to Brenna’s to work on a project.”
“Hold up, I’m not your messenger. Besides, aren’t you still grounded?”
“Fine. I’ll text her. Why don’t you tell her about the test you flunked instead?”
Ruthie grimaced. “I won’t say anything. Just be careful, okay?”
Joshua surprised himself by pulling her into a quick, fierce hug. She laughed and shoved him away playfully.
Joshua unchained his bike and rolled up one of his jean legs so it wouldn’t snag in the chain. The air stung his ears and froze the hairs in his nose. He rode desperately, remembering his ride after the tornado weeks before. That night, his entire world had grown to include Brenna, Callie, and Luke—his Wolverine, who made sure that Joshua couldn’t hold on to his hurt and anger any longer. If Luke really was gone, Joshua swore he’d be happy for him, because it would mean that the man had found what he needed.
* * *
* * *
By the time Joshua reached Brenna’s house, his exposed calf was red and burning from the cold. Brenna’s porch light wasn’t on, but Golden Girl was in the driveway, and Joshua could see lights through their blinds.
A slim, thin-haired guy who Joshua took to be Brenna’s brother answered the door. “What?”
“I’m a friend of Brenna’s.”
Joshua allowed his teeth to chatter, hoping that the guy would invite him inside to warm up, but he kept his dark eyes locked on Joshua and shouted, “Brenna, your prince is here!” A few seconds later Brenna shoved him aside and stepped onto the stoop, pulling on a jacket.
“He has his asshole friends over,” she said, and gestured toward the cemetery. “Wanna walk?”
By now it was dusk. Dull stars and a sliver of moon were just visible in a lavender sky, transforming the trees into black silhouettes. The pair weaved around the stones, not following the dirt paths but some route only Brenna knew. She paused for a beat at the foot of certain graves, as though greeting the residents below. Joshua tried to read the stones each time they paused, but the text had been worn away on many.
“Did Callie say anything to you about Mrs. Vidal?” Joshua asked.
“No. Why?”
Joshua stomped his feet to get some feeling back into his frozen toes. “I haven’t seen Luke since we went to Indiana. It’s like he never existed. Have you heard from Dot?”
She shook her head and snaked her hands into the sleeves of her jacket. “Manny’s had Golden Girl a lot, so I haven’t made it to the Cities. And it’s not like she has a phone.”
“Do you think he’s gone for good?” Joshua asked. “Just like that?” He tried to ask this casually, but his voice sounded ragged, its bare underbelly exposed.
“I mean, I hope not. But I hope so too. Maybe you helped him face the past or whatever.” She shrugged weakly, resigned. “We could go look for Dot to check it out. You can stash your bike in the car again.”
“Technically, I’m still grounded.”
“But your mom doesn’t seem to take that very seriously, does she?”
He laughed. “No, I think she’s probably glad I have somewhere to go for once. Anyway, what’s she going to do? Double-ground me?”
“That’s the spirit.” Brenna smiled. “I’ll steal the keys from Manny.”
The sky had become a velvety navy and the darkness had settled around them like a quilt. A blue light—frosty and ethereal—glowed near Joshua’s feet.
“Brenna. The stones.”
“The stones,” she repeated, the words barely a whisper. They spun in a circle.
Blue lights spotted the darkness around them in a mysterious constellation. The lights were steady but also appeared to float. Lanterns of the dead. The color, Joshua imagined, of glaciers.
He exhaled, aware now that he’d been holding his breath. So much was possible. Finally, all that hurt and sadness at the way he’d been treated had been replaced by something altogether different: wonder.
The warehouse’s mural had been repainted—this time as a representation of Notorious RBG, the crown on the justice’s head a neon pink. Brenna knocked on the sliding door and then pressed her ear against it. She couldn’t hear anything. She pulled on the handle, and the door slid open easily. Inside, the warehouse was dark. Brenna used her phone flashlight, but the measly light didn’t reach the corners of the cavernous room.
“Dot,” she called.
No one answered.
Brenna took a breath and slid inside. “Stick close,” she said to Joshua. He grabbed the shirttail of her flannel, shuffling like a duck behind her, and she laughed, shaking him off. He flicked on his phone flashlight too, adding the light to hers. The room was empty.
“She’s gone too,” Brenna said.
“No goodbye.”
“No goodbye,” Brenna repeated, a lump in her throat. She hoped Dot had made her way back to where she belonged, but she also wished they’d h
ad more time together. Time to ask more questions. To write with Dot’s encouragement. To listen to her sing.
“Wait—what’s this?” Joshua’s light landed near the center of the room, illuminating something on the floor. The candle Dot had lit, broad and white, left behind like a sign or message. Brenna picked it up and rubbed the wax that had dripped and hardened along the sides.
“Maybe it’s up to us,” she said.
“What is?” asked Joshua.
“Saying goodbye.”
SOMEWHERE IN THOSE HOWLING
Somewhere in those howling hours of the first winter storm, our three slipped back in, like kids sneaking home, tumbling into their beds weary and wind-kissed, and we became whole again.
Now we watch as Callie jogs down the stairs of Mrs. Vidal’s inn and climbs into the back seat of Golden Girl. There’s a FOR SALE sign in Callie’s front yard, a smaller placard that reads HISTORIC HOME perched on top.
“It should probably say haunted too,” Callie says.
The three teens laugh and debate if haunting is something that realtors must disclose, if the people who move in will think the mysterious sounds are mice and a settling foundation or visitors passing through from one world to the next.
Across from Callie’s house, the park has transformed into Halloween Land. Jack-o’-lantern string lights dance in the wind, and children climb hay bales. A zebra with mittens licks a candied apple. A toddler-zombie drags a pillowcase full of candy. A ladybug tries to catch an old man dressed like a wolf. He lets her.