“I’m covered in paint,” I explained, and sat on my step stool instead. “What’s up, pussycat?”
“You know the Ben thing?”
“Hmmm … Ben thing … what do you mean? Yes, of course I know the Ben thing. What about it?”
“Well, I was there painting”—she gestured broadly at the wall—“singing along with Paul Young about every time you go away, and the idea hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.”
“I’m listening.”
“Paranormal experts!”
If that was supposed to be some sort of big, obvious revelation, it wasn’t. “What does that mean?”
“You know, the show? Ghost Hunters? Or the millions of shows like it where people who are ghost hunters go to haunted places with a bunch of equipment and find out if there is an actual haunting or some other explanation.”
“You mean like a hoax?” Irritation niggled at me. “I can assure you I’m not making stuff up here.”
“No, I don’t mean that. But sometimes when people say that every time they’re on this spot on the steps they feel a presence, when the investigators go into the walls they find there’s an electrical box there and that accounts for all the peculiar feelings they have there.”
“That makes sense! I mean, I think it does. If we have iron in our blood, the magnetic pull seems like it would make us feel funny in some way.”
“Right.”
“But”—I thought about it—“that isn’t what’s happening here. I’m not just feeling strange and calling it Casper, I’ve actually seen things.”
She nodded. “I think they can sort all that out.”
She was pandering to me, I knew it. And I didn’t blame her. What I was saying sounded insane and there was no way someone who wasn’t experiencing it could believe it. She clearly hoped she could get someone in here—and, honestly, who would even be interested in this small-time haunting?—to explain away my visions. Maybe even for her as much as for me.
She wanted it gone.
And that was, maybe, the last thing I wanted.
“Let’s ask Jamie what he thinks. Where is he?”
“Hitting the pavement for work.”
She looked at her Fitbit. “It’s eight forty-five. When will he be home?”
That was later than I’d thought. “Let me just text him.” I went to the kitchen counter and punched out, when will you be home?
I was starting to walk away, but the phone dinged right away.
On way now.
I smiled with inner relief but, as usual, I was tempted to text back, why are you texting while you’re driving? But the problem was that he was driving and he would read it, possibly even answer, maybe get in an accident, and it would all be my fault. Or I’d feel like it was, forever.
“He’s on his way home,” I announced, going back into the family room and picking up my roller.
“Texted you that he was on his way, huh?”
“Mm-hm.”
“And now you’re worried that he’s texting and driving.”
“The little shit.” I laughed. “What does it take for them to learn? Is there anything short of an actual catastrophe?”
“I talk to Kelsey about it all the time. Feels like I get nowhere, but, honestly, a lot of the stuff we said when she was little and we thought it was going in one ear and out the other has actually taken hold. She doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t do drugs, she’s got good grades and good ambitions, so I can’t complain.” She dipped her paintbrush into the bucket. “Except about that damn texting.”
“Amen.”
“So tell me,” Kristin went on after a moment. “Before he gets here. What really is happening with Jamie? I never see him acting up particularly. Why are you two having so much trouble?”
It was a subject that got me riled immediately because it was subtle and often hidden completely from the rest of the world. “He can be really belligerent,” I said. “If I tell him to do something he doesn’t want to do, he just won’t. It’s gotten to the point where he’ll even say no right to me.” I sighed. “It’s exhausting, but what can I do? I’m alone with it.”
Kristin nodded. “And you were always the good cop.”
“Yeah, now I’ve got to be both. But more often than not I end up as the bad cop.”
“I guess the girlfriend situation isn’t helping much.”
“Ugh. Perfect example. For a while there he was spending all his time with her—again, regardless of what I said or what I needed him to do—and her manipulations were just so obvious to me, but he couldn’t see them. He was ‘in love’ and just had to be with her every minute.”
“Unfortunately, I remember being that teenage girl.”
“Oh, no, no, no, believe me, you were never this teenage girl. This one is different. I’m not being a mom with a prejudice.”
Kristin smiled. “Well, maybe a little…”
“Okay, maybe a little.” I laughed. “But, seriously. No. And I hope he’s getting over that, as evidenced by him coming here. But there’s another example right there! I had to practically beg him to come. And it took fourteen million phone calls for me to finally get ahold of him.”
“Kids.” She shook her head. “By the time we know how hard they’re going to be, it’s too late. We already love them.”
I had to laugh. “It’s true. But if anyone had told me the magnitude of the worrying I’d be doing for the rest of my life, I don’t know if I could have faced it.”
“Oh, sure you could,” she said sagely. “You did. You do every day.”
We both proceeded with the painting, with me all nerves and bated breath, until the door opened and Jamie came in. I know it’s ridiculous for me to worry so much, particularly during a fifteen-minute drive on roads that also allow bicycles since the speed limit is so low, but my nerves were strung tight and I just couldn’t help it.
“Hey,” Jamie said, ambling into the family room, neatly dodging the paint supplies and plunking down on the couch. “Hey, Kristin.”
“Hey, Jam,” she said. “We were just talking about you.”
I shot her a warning glance.
“What were you saying?” he asked.
“I was saying how proud I am of you,” I said. Even to my own ears, it sounded so patronizing. It was true, but at some point we stop being kids, maybe stop being ourselves, and become people in charge of guiding our young, even if we do it in a way that makes them roll their eyes at us.
“Well,” he said, clearly feeling awkward. “Thanks. It, uh, it looks like the job at the restaurant is going to work out. I already started training.”
“Wow,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say. I was impressed, I was proud, I was sad he wouldn’t be here to help me, but maybe that was best since I was going to sell the place. He didn’t need to fall in love with it again only to lose it. “That’s really cool.”
“Think you could get Kelsey a job there when she gets here?” Kristin asked.
We both looked at her.
“Is she coming?” Jamie asked. I knew he’d have been embarrassed by the tinge of hope in his voice if he’d known it was there.
I felt the same sort of tinge myself, hoping she would come and add some normality, but I made the mistake of asking, “Do you want her to come, Jamie?”
He looked at me. “I don’t know. Whatever.”
“You totally want her to come,” I said. “I do too! Kris, what’s the deal, is she coming?”
Kristin shrugged. “She’s got another day or two of summer school, and then I’m hoping she’ll want to come, yeah.”
“Oh! And summer school,” I said, and gave Jamie a look. “See, it’s not that unusual to have to take supplementary classes.”
“She’s trying to graduate early,” he said, and didn’t add, Versus me, who is just trying to graduate at all. “And I just finished my class. Turned in the last essay.”
“Good.” I looked at Kristin. She nodded, a little red-faced at the exchange b
etween Jamie and me. “She was always ambitious, that kid of yours.”
“I don’t know where she gets it.”
I hated that she didn’t feel like she could reveal the pride she must have been feeling. Hell, I was proud of Jamie for so many things that weren’t academic, I tried never to let comparisons get into the mix. “That girl kicks ass, just like her mother,” I said.
Kristin smiled, a real, wide, happy smile. “She does kick ass. But so does Jamie.” She nodded at him.
Before he could object, I said, “God knows it. I can’t wait until he’s out of high school and starting on what he really wants to do.” I’d meant it as encouragement. As a sort of, I understand you hate it now and in many ways high school is bullshit, so just hold on because you’re going to like the rest of your life so much better than that.
But I hadn’t said that. I’d chirped that I couldn’t wait until he was out of high school, as if there were some doubt that would ever happen, and that was a shitty thing for me to say, even though it wasn’t what I’d meant.
Man, sometimes there is just no getting it right.
A shadow crossed his expression, exactly as I knew it would, and he stood up. “I’m going up to bed,” he said. “I told them I’d go in tomorrow at ten.”
“Okay.” Every nerve in my body was screaming out for me to fix this, to somehow make it better, but I couldn’t, I had to just let him go. Anything I might have said to clarify my statement would only have seemed like overcompensation. I’d been there before. Enough times that you’d have thought I’d learn.
When he was gone, I turned to Kristin.
Before I could speak, she held up a hand. “They’re all moody and constantly ready to take offense.”
“I should have been more careful.”
She looked at me, straight in the eye, and said, “Actually? He should be getting better grades and giving a shit about his future instead of leaving all of that worry to you.”
It was only at that moment that I realized the extent of my self-consciousness about my parenting, that I had been embarrassed, not about my son’s level of achievement, but at the level—or lack—of my involvement in it one way or the other. I knew I needed to step up more, but, deep down, I also knew that no amount of my stepping up could give him the motivation that needed to come from within.
“Thank you,” I said, heartfelt.
She gave a dry laugh, but her eyes were a little sad. “Remind me of that myself, okay? Kelsey’s doing okay at school, but she’s so uncommunicative at home that I can hardly believe she’s the same little girl I read to every night and watched The Sound of Music with over and over again.” She sighed. “I know she’s not a mean girl at school, but damned if she isn’t one at home sometimes.”
“I had no idea!”
“Of course you do. We deal with these little monsters all day long, every day, a hundred and eighty days a year. We see their nice phases and we see them go totally retrograde. No reason to imagine ours won’t be the same.”
I nodded. “I think I imagine everyone’s doing a better job than I am so that I can punish myself for something real, something that might actually be my fault—and therefore under my control—rather than the sad circumstances that took over Jamie’s life.”
“I’ve seen you do it a million times,” she answered. “I’m actually glad you brought it up because, as much as you want to control things, and I don’t blame you, none of this is your fault. And you’re doing a much better job under the circumstances than most people would, myself included. Sometimes you have to just accept that life can be random.”
“Random good I could accept. Random bad just sucks.”
She gave a half shrug. “Yeah, but can you deny it? Your life has obviously seen some random bad.”
“No denying that.”
“And on top of that, you’ve got this ghost stuff happening now. If it’s your imagination—and I’m sorry, but I do have to mention that possibility—then I think it’s a fairly easy fix with a shrink. Grief, loneliness, all the usual suspects.”
I took a deep shuddering breath, then let it out. “I agree,” I said honestly, although it was embarrassing. “I’ve thought of that.”
“But.” She raised an eyebrow. “If something real is happening here, maybe even someone gaslighting you, well, we need to know that too.”
“Gaslighting seems a bit unlikely.”
“What else is there?”
I shrugged. “Gaslighting implies an intention on someone’s part to drive me crazy. And, yes, I can see how a visitation like that can drive someone crazy, but there’s also the possibility that it’s just that—a visitation. Innocuous. Unlikely. A tear in the universe that lets two souls who miss each other terribly embrace, if only vaguely, once again.”
She watched me talking, and then I noticed her eyes were filled with tears. “That is so beautiful,” she said. “I only wish it were true.”
“You don’t know that it isn’t.”
There was a very long hesitation then. And I sympathized with her, because her answer couldn’t come easily. She hadn’t been in my shoes, she hadn’t seen what I had, heard what I had, felt what I had. She hadn’t run the full gamut of thoughts and emotions through this (though admittedly I myself had gone through the skepticism she was clearly feeling now). How could she believe the fantastic story I’d told, having not experienced any of it herself at all?
“I’m sorry,” I hastened to add. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I know you’re worried about me and trying to help, it’s just that…” I didn’t know what else to say. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you yet.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Willa
A few days later, the plumber was back, doing the final touches on the new bathroom sink. It looked amazing. If I kept going and changing the place up, it was going to be hard to leave.
But it was impossible not to, so I continued to pack while Kristin continued to paint and Jamie continued to work at the restaurant.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Kristin sang as she came into the bedroom where I was packing up years’ worth of summer clothes I’d left there. I was giving them to charity and trying not to look at them as I tossed them aside. It was too easy, in this packing process, for me to talk myself into keeping things, and that was dangerous. My house was already full of stuff and memories. I didn’t need more of either.
“What is it?” I asked, a little excited at the prospect.
“Guess who’s coming.”
My excitement suspended. “Is it a bunch of nerdy men with ghost-hunting equipment and high hopes? Because I really think that’s a bad idea.”
She looked puzzled for a split second and then said, “No, no. It’s Kelsey.”
Then my heart really did warm. Kelsey was coming! For one thing, she was a very pleasant girl and fun to have around. Like her mother, she had the gift of making the maudlin seem okay. That would be particularly good for Jamie. He’d always loved hanging out with her, and maybe that would still be true.
“That’s great!” I enthused genuinely. “I haven’t seen her for ages!”
“Neither has Jamie,” Kristin said, and raised an eyebrow. “And, frankly, I think she’d be good for him.”
I tossed a too-small T-shirt that read NAMASTE IN BED into the box. My yoga period had passed a while ago and I wasn’t sure it was coming back, but if it did, I didn’t need to wear a shirt that had always seemed better suited for Barbie than for me. “I think she would too. In fact, that was my first thought.” I sighed. “I’m sorry he’s been so grumpy.”
She brushed it off. “He’s a kid. He’s a kid in a place he dreaded coming to.”
“That’s true. I know this isn’t easy for him. It’s not easy for any of us, but I worry about it the most for him.”
Kristin nodded. “That I understand. I’ve seen that kid go through so much, he definitely doesn’t need a negative influence in his life.” She looked at me. �
��Which reminds me of something I should say more—Willa, you’ve done an amazing job soldiering on through this. You really have, and I don’t think you hear it enough. I know I don’t say it enough.”
I smiled through tears. “Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
At that moment, it felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me. Because the truth was, I’d felt weak. I’d felt weepy and needy and whiny and weak at times, to the point where I didn’t know how I could go on.
That’s the thing, though. If you’re not the kind of person who’s going to kill themselves—and I’m not—then, when you reach rock bottom, say you can’t take it anymore … you have no choice. You have to keep on going, if you’re not going to stop. Time marches on and even if you take to your bed, Camille-like, you still march on with it. You still think, you still grieve, you still grow if you’re lucky. Gain the distance that allows you to go from one day to the next without pacing the floor thinking, I don’t think I can I don’t think I can I don’t think I can.
You can because you must.
But I wasn’t sure I’d always done it so gracefully.
“I think we should go to the boardwalk,” Kristin said abruptly. “And go on the Ferris wheel.” She was always like this with sensitive topics. She’d raise something she was not entirely comfortable saying, explore the topic until her point was made, then maneuver out of it so that the other person didn’t have to linger on it and start feeling defensive or overly appreciative or whatever else would come.
This was one of those moments where, if she’d said anything else, I probably would have cried my eyes out.
Instead I was suddenly humoring her again, rather than the other way around. “The Ferris wheel?”
She nodded, like the idea was taking hold and she was liking it more and more. “What the hell? We’re here, it’s summer, there’s a Ferris wheel three miles away. Let’s take a quick break and ride it!”
My first instinct—as well as my second, third, and fourth—was to say no, that was silly, I had stuff to do and couldn’t take the time. So instead I followed my fifth instinct and said, “Let’s do it.”
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