The Haunted House Project

by Tricia Clasen

  When I read those words, I knew that I had a new goal. That, beyond everything else, there was a real reason for me to do what I’m doing, and it didn’t have to be that I just wanted my family back to normal. That’s great and all, and, of course, that’s what I want, but just wanting that has started to make me feel selfish. What a crazy, idiotic plan this has been if it’s only for my selfish needs. But this—this is a real reason. My mom had a plan for us, and everything tells me Paige will blow that plan if changes aren’t made.

  In the basement, I trade out the current journal for one I had already tucked back in the tub. I don’t leave before I lose almost another hour reading more of my mom’s words.

  I don’t leave the basement empty-handed, though. I grab two items I’d noticed the last time I was down here. The first is my mom’s phone. I know it won’t have service anymore, but I was surprised when I saw it, because I thought it had been destroyed in the crash. It is a little banged up, a corner is dented, but Dad must have kept it for a reason.

  I run my fingers over the buttons several times before I’m finally brave enough to press the green ON button. Nothing happens, of course. I dig back into the tub and find the charger, then I scoot over by the wall so I can plug it in. I don’t know what I expect to see. I assumed my dad had canceled service on it, but almost instantly, there’s a ding. Eleven new voice mail messages. And forty-two new texts.

  My heart lurches in my chest. They must be from people who don’t know. I used to hate those awkward calls to the house or run-ins with acquaintances at the grocery store.

  “How’s your mom?”

  “Dead.”

  I imagine that wouldn’t go over too well, so instead usually there was this strange dance where I would shuffle my feet and look at the ground while stammering out something about an accident. I didn’t like to see their faces when realization hit them. It was embarrassing and awful for both of us, and inevitably I would tear up at some point. It’s hard to get past the shock of your mom being gone when you constantly have to tell people who are hearing it for the first time.

  When I open up the voice mail, I can see there are probably a few of those—mostly from 1-800 numbers, so they’re probably credit card companies or charities. I ignore them. My eyes are drawn to one number that takes over most of the history.

  It’s my dad’s cell phone number. He calls her. Still.

  He never stopped.

  I can’t listen. I shouldn’t listen. I back out of voice mail and open the texts instead.

  Other than a few from her service provider telling her about some deal, they’re also all from him. The texts are short, like texts usually are. But I can see the story that’s being told between the lines.

  “Where do you keep the insurance files?”

  “What kind of spaghetti sauce do you buy?”

  “Missed you at lunch today.”

  “Won $100 on slots but lost $250 at poker.”

  “Paige quit track. I’m sorry.”

  “Went to a meeting today. Couldn’t make it through.”

  It’s like someone took cotton balls and stuffed them down my throat. I can’t breathe. I shouldn’t see this. It’s too personal. My shaking hand goes back to the voice mail screen. Just one, I tell myself. It wouldn’t be fair to listen to them all, but one can’t hurt anything, can it?

  I set the phone down. No, I shouldn’t. I won’t. I pick it back up. But I can’t not.

  I pick a random date. I figure it will be less obvious if he ever sees that they’ve been listened to.

  At first, I barely recognize his voice. It’s quiet, muffled. Then I hear the tears, and I feel like someone threw a brick at my stomach. It’s not that I haven’t seen my dad cry before. But even after Mom died, during the funeral, at the house, it was only silent tears. His eyes would be red, but he’d still stand there greeting people.

  This is choked sobbing. His words come in starts and stops.

  “… can’t do it. What’s wrong with me?—How could you do this to me?—Sometimes I hate you…. No, you know I don’t.”

  I hang up. Not this one.

  I press another date. This one’s more recent.

  “Hi. It’s been a few months. I know you’re not listening, but it feels good to pretend you can hear me. When I talk to the air, it doesn’t feel the same. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Not in the usual way. I miss you, of course, and I usually think about what you’d be doing if you were here and how much easier life would be. But lately it’s been more about where you are. Where are you? Andie still reads those stupid ghost books, and I picked one up when I saw it lying there in her room the other day. Are you a ghost? Are you around us, still? Can you see us? Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  It takes me a while to catch my breath. I don’t cry, but my lungs are frozen.

  I wish I could talk to him about these things. It’s not like I haven’t thought about them. I wonder if Paige has too.

  I wonder what would happen if I tried to tell my dad that I wonder the same thing. I don’t listen to any more of the messages. It isn’t that I don’t want to. More than anything I want to know everything my dad’s been going through and all the things he’s been thinking. A big part of me thinks I have a right to know. I even consider taking the phone and showing it to Paige. She’d have a better idea what to do with these messages. But on the other hand, these messages are like my dad’s diary. I wouldn’t want him reading mine, if I had one, anyway. I only feel okay about reading my mom’s journals because she’s not here anymore.

  So I drop the phone back in the box.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I’ve lost so much time that as soon as I get to the top of the steps, I get nervous. I can’t believe I’m actually hoping this is one of my dad’s bad days. I shut the door quietly behind me and I keep an ear out. It seems quiet. So I walk/run through the kitchen.

  As soon as I turn the corner, I practically run straight into my dad.

  “Why the race?” he asks as he rubs his eyes.

  “I need to wake up Paige.”

  “Oh,” he says.

  “Did you just get up?”

  He nods, clearly not entirely awake yet. I breeze past him, jog up the stairs, slip into my room to hide the journal I left sitting on my bed, and then go to Paige’s room, where I knock several times and call out to her.

  At first, I hear her groan, and then something must click. Bacon, I think. Because her voice sounds very clear when she calls out, “Did you make breakfast?”

  “Uh, no,” I say, using my best duh voice.

  Then I sort of skip back to my room. So many traps lie around the house this morning. It’s almost like a grand finale of a fireworks show, but I know it’s not over yet. There’s another big boom to come. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. And since listening to my mom’s phone, a small pit of guilt has settled in my chest. If my dad is wishing she were a ghost, is it wrong to give him hope?

  I tap my fingers on my dresser as I stare at my reflection. Should I stay or should I go? I could say I needed to take off early to meet up with Isaiah. Then I’d miss the chance to ooh and aah at the Fourth of July explosions, but I also wouldn’t have to try to keep a straight face so I don’t look guilty or deal with any potential backfire.

  After taking a deep breath, I decide I need orange juice before I can decide, so I head back downstairs. Paige hasn’t come out of her room yet. As I pass her doorway, I can hear her opening and closing drawers.

  Downstairs, my dad sits in the living room, staring at the flickering lamp.

  “What’s up?” I ask, because it would be weird not to say anything.

  “Broken lamp, I think.”

  “That’s kind of weird, huh?”

  He nods, but he doesn’t break eye contact with the lamp.

  I would leave—I should leave—but my dad’s confused, pathetic expression holds me captive. “You need anythin
g?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head slowly. “I’m going to shower.”

  My fists clench as I watch him set his coffee mug down and exit the room. Now I really should leave, but Paige is standing in front of me, her expression unreadable. Just sort of blank, like my dad’s.

  She sees me and says, “I’m in the mood for breakfast. How about you?”

  No, you should not stay for breakfast, I tell myself. You’re walking on a high wire. “Sure” slips out of my mouth before I remember that I should be “leaving early to meet Isaiah.” “I can start it if you want.”

  She smiles and says something about me being the best little sister ever, and then goes back upstairs to finish getting ready. My head is spinning.

  In the kitchen, I check the dates on the eggs. They’re still good, so I scramble up a bunch and throw some bread in the toaster. We don’t have any bacon, and I’m glad. I’m not sure I could have made it through seeing anyone eat bacon.

  That ten minutes or so is quiet—a calm before the storm. My eggs are pretty, fluffy and yellow. I even find strawberry jam in the cupboard for the toast. I set the table with actual forks and knives and real plates instead of paper ones. I fill a glass of juice for Paige and top off my dad’s coffee. Then I wait. Dad might as well be a ghost himself when he returns. All the color has faded from his face, and he walks as if floating.

  Paige slides into a chair and pokes at the eggs with her fork. I think Dad eats his just to be nice. Their thoughts must be heavy, because their heads both hang low over their plates. I hadn’t planned what would come next when I did all this today. I knew eventually they would talk to each other about everything that had been happening, but I didn’t expect it to start right then.

  “I smelled bacon this morning.” Paige speaks in a low, soft voice, still staring at her eggs. “Why does bacon remind me of Mom?”

  I smile. “Bacon reminds me of Mom, too,” I tell her.

  Dad whispers, “She sure loved bacon.” Then he pauses before adding, “I swear I smelled her perfume today.”

  Paige’s head snaps up. “I’ve smelled her perfume, too. The other day on the couch.”

  “Really?” Dad leans toward her. “I’ve had other things, too. Like messages.”

  “Me too!” Paige sits up taller. “Not just the journal either. Wait, does Andie know about the journal?”

  She’s pointing at me, and Dad is nodding. “I told her.”

  “Anyway, I swear a picture was moved. What about you?”

  “Words in dust. Words on my mirror. Her words.” He sets his fork down. Paige looks at him, wide-eyed. “And the lamp this morning.”

  “What? You saw writing? From Mom?” Paige’s voice has gone higher, and I’m afraid to look anyone in the eye, but I glance up, and I catch my dad’s eyes narrowing.

  “Calm down, Paige. I might have imagined things. I’m not sure what I saw.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Paige’s face crumple a little. “What about you, Andie? Have you seen anything odd?”

  The wheels in my head spin. What I want to answer is that I’ve seen lots of odd things lately. That my dad gambling away insurance money and my sister giving up on college are odd enough for me without worrying about Mom’s ghost. I want to tell them that the best messages I’ve had from Mom lately were her own. Her journal and the video of her. That’s the point of all of this, after all. To remember the real mom, not the ghost mom. But I don’t know how to say that right now when Paige is excited. I’m so scared of getting caught that my knees are shaking under the table.

  I shrug a shoulder and take a bite of my eggs. I’m chewing as I say, “Don’t think so.”

  Paige isn’t giving up. “Do you think there’s any way …”

  Dad cuts her off. “No, Paige. This isn’t one of Andie’s books. Mom is gone.”

  “But there are so many coincidences. Isn’t there a possibility?”

  “You know ghosts aren’t real.”

  “Andie thinks they’re real, don’t you? You’re always reading about them.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” I put my fork down and shrug. “I … I’m actually doing a science project on it.”

  Dad raises an eyebrow. “Really? A science project?”

  I sit up a little straighter. “Yeah, Isaiah and I have a semester science research project, and we decided to explore scientific theories of ghosts.”

  “The teacher was okay with that topic?” I can’t quite read my dad’s face, but I hear concern in his voice.

  I nod.

  His brow furrows, and I wonder if this is it. Is this where we get to finally really talk about things? About how we’re feeling and about whether we think there is an afterlife?

  “Seriously? The teacher let you do that?” Paige’s mouth hangs open a bit. Then she cocks her head. “What have you figured out? Anything good?”

  Dad shakes his head slightly and starts collecting plates. He makes a lot of noise, but I can feel his eyes on me. “Not now. You two better get going. I’ll take care of cleanup. I’m sure this is all just coincidences.”

  “Too convenient,” Paige says, as she pushes her chair away from the table. She smiles though. She’s the one who seems most excited about the idea that Mom’s ghost might actually be haunting us. Now that I know about Dad and the phone, I think maybe Paige is the one who’s been hiding away all her emotions. Maybe while she held everything together, she’s been the most lost.

  As we ride to school, Paige peppers me with questions about ghosts. I explain all the theories I know. I’ve told her some of this before, but she’s getting more serious with her questions. She starts bringing up other signs. Things I didn’t do.

  Like the time her car wouldn’t start, but she said she wished Mom were there and then when she turned the key, the engine flared up.

  Or the time she didn’t have any money to put gas in her car, but she found a five-dollar bill in a purse Mom had borrowed just a couple of days before she died.

  She lists enough things that even I start to wonder … is it possible? Could Mom really be around and somehow I didn’t notice? Have I been missing real signs all this time I’ve been planting fake ones?

  Paige is about to drop me off at my usual spot in front of the school, but I motion for her to go around to the back entrance.

  “Huh? But your friends are right there. I can see Gisela standing by the doors.”

  “I just don’t want to see anyone this morning.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Well, Mom died,” I say. She whips her head toward me, but then she must see in my face that I’m serious. “That sort of changed everything,” I add.

  Paige runs her hand across the steering wheel and exhales. “Yeah. That it did.”

  “Anyway, it hasn’t been fun, but I’ll be okay.” It’s funny because, for the first time, I think I might actually believe that.

  She reaches out for my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Let me know if you need to talk.”

  I need to talk every day, I think. I’ve needed you to talk to me every day since Mom died, I want to tell her.

  “Thanks,” I say instead. “You, too.” And I mean it.

  My morning is actually pretty normal, all things considered. I don’t run into Becki or anyone else—I’m getting good at avoiding them in all their usual spots. Amanda high-fives me as she passes in the hall, and I swear some kids looked at me with awe after that. Hey, I’ll take what I can get.

  It isn’t until I’m called out of class to Mrs. Carter’s office that anything unusual happens. My heart immediately begins to jackhammer. The last time I was called out of any class, I learned about the accident. When I get to her office and see my dad sitting in the room, my first thought is Paige.

  But his face isn’t sad. For the first time in a long time, my dad looks mad, which kind of scares me. I wasn’t sure it was even possible for him anymore. His emotions have been so absent. But his brow is crinkled and his lips are tig
ht. He massages his temples, something he always used to do to keep from blowing up when he was mad.

  For a split second, I consider making a run for it. Maybe they didn’t notice me come in—I can sneak back out the door, get down the hall, and hide in the bathroom by the art hall or something. Whatever is going on, I just know this is not a conversation I want to have.

  I take one step backward, but I’m too late.

  “Andie,” Mrs. Carter says, motioning to the chair next to my dad, “shut the door behind you and have a seat.”

  I don’t bother to ask if everything is okay. I already know it’s not. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a clue about what is going on. There is only one thing that could bring these two together today.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Your dad called me today. He said he’s been worried about you and he knew we had chatted some. I did not share anything from our sessions, just so you know.”

  “Okay,” I croak out.

  “I found this,” my dad adds. He sets Isaiah’s chart on her desk. “What are you trying to do, Andie?”

  I remind myself to breathe in and out. How could I have been so stupid? When I don’t say anything, Mrs. Carter joins in again.

  “Andie, in the course of our conversation, your dad mentioned some things, and based on your friend’s warning last week, I shared with him my concerns that you might be doing something to make your family think your mom’s ghost is still around. Your father did some searching.”

  I appreciate her play-by-play and wanting to let me know what had actually happened and all, but at the same time I just want my dad to say something.

  “How could you do that?” he asks. He won’t look at me. “I can’t believe you would do that.”

  “I had to do something,” I argue. “You weren’t.” I don’t know where that last part comes from, and I instantly feel guilty for saying it even if it’s true. I don’t want to get Dad in trouble with Mrs. Carter.

  “That’s not fair, Andie. You really have Paige hopeful that your mom is trying to contact us. Is this part of your project?”