Ghost Gifts

by Laura Spinella

  “You mean more so than the idea of communicating with the dead, period?”

  “I was just a teenager—on your beach in Connecticut. That day—in addition to saving a young boy’s life—Brody assured me he’d be back. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I do know it’s something more than your precious random chance. Do you really think it’s coincidence that you and I should end up in the same newsroom years later?”

  “So now he planned it?”

  “Planned it . . . knew it would come to pass . . . understood that one day he’d have this exact opportunity. Look at it any way you need to. Don’t confuse my gift with an ability to explain the universe,” she said. “I’m not that special.”

  Levi’s expression remained vague, looking as if he were undecided—possibly about what she was saying, more likely about how to get rid of her. It was a battle of wills, and Aubrey understood that she was out of pleasant approaches.

  “Just go. I don’t want you here,” he said, toneless. “I’ll come into the office shortly. We’ll work the Flannigan story . . . just the Flannigan story. If we can keep it to that—”

  “I can’t.” Aubrey slumped onto the footboard of the bed. “I get your skepticism. I really do. Believe me. You are far from my first trip to that rodeo. It’s one of many reasons I don’t want this,” she said, her arm circling empty air, “to be my life. I know the things I’ve said about Brody can be attributed to good research. For instance, I—”

  But Aubrey stopped, distracted by a voice. It was clearer than in recent weeks, nearly as vibrant as that morning on Rocky Neck beach. She skimmed her gaze downward, her mind focused on the words—Brody’s words. Tiny waves of explanation began to wash toward her. Levi’s hands were thrust to his waist; his watch was at her eye level. Aubrey looked up. “The scent of salt water and the smell of burning wood. They don’t go together.”

  “What are you talking about?” Levi said.

  “Some things are mutually exclusive. Brody was a lifeguard on that beach in Connecticut, but he didn’t die there. He died three thousand miles away . . . in a fire.”

  “That’s it! We’re done.” He grabbed Aubrey’s arm, yanking her off the bed. “I want you out of here, now!”

  Levi hustled her toward the door, his will and size moving them out of the bedroom and through the condo. Aubrey continued to talk, the sound of Brody’s voice supplying her with a steady stream of information. “You were visiting your mother. You’ve never told me much about her.”

  “Sure I did. She was a drunk. Still is, for the most part,” he said, all but dragging her through the living room. “If you did some in-depth Googling, you probably even discovered that she starred in a soap opera back in the day.” They came to an abrupt halt in the hall. Levi’s grip tightened, yanking her toward him. “If you can tell me the name of it, I’ll give you bonus points and politely open the door, which, believe me, is not my first instinct.”

  Aubrey pulled her arm back, the two of them caught in the narrow condo hall. “Actually, I have no idea about that. But here’s a lesser-known piece of Levi St John trivia—your mother, she was also a Playboy Bunny. That’s how your parents met. She was part of a USO tour.”

  Levi’s mouth pursed to a hard line. He sounded like a bull snorting a breath. “A minute detail, but not impossible to ascertain—especially if you’ve seen the April ’77 issue of Playboy. My mother looks amazing on deep-pile shag. Did you happen to catch the heart-shaped mole on the inside of her left thigh?”

  “Afraid not. Brody didn’t mention anything like that about J.C.”

  On the breath meant to deliver more cynicism, Levi stopped. “J—”

  “J.C.,” she said.

  Emotion crept onto Levi’s stone-carved face.

  “That’s what Brody said he called her. It stands for—”

  “I know what it stands for.” His wide dark eyes turned to slits. “I know my mother’s . . . I just . . .”

  “You’d forgotten that. Or you haven’t thought about it in years, what Brody used to call your mother. It’s also not something I would have learned via the most scrupulous research.” There wasn’t any rebuttal, just a startled look. “They had a good relationship, Levi. That made you happy. Brody liked your mother, he was even a little envious that you had one . . . despite her flaws.”

  “An astute guess.” But his tone had weakened. Levi shook his head. It was involuntary, more like he was fighting her for the mental edge. “So beyond a few facts, this is a well-honed craft, strategically placed guesses. A parlor trick, a Vegas show . . .” But Levi didn’t move, his body almost pressing into hers. His mouth opened and closed. He held his arms stiff to his sides and his hands curled to fists. “Prove it, Ellis. Tell me one thing . . . just one thing that no one on this earth could possibly know.”

  “I’ll tell you two.” Aubrey breathed deep, the scents of seawater and burning wood marrying together. “Brody went with you to California because you almost drowned in the pool the summer before. The gardener pulled you out.” Levi’s jaw slacked, his eyes so glassy Aubrey saw her reflection. “You confided to Brody, and I sincerely doubt another living soul, that you’d been diving for pennies.”

  Levi stepped away, his back to the wall. His glare glanced off Aubrey and into the corners of the narrow entry. He looked down as her hand came up and boldly wrapped around the watch on his wrist. “And the other thing?”

  “It’s about the night he died. That’s why Brody’s here. It’s why he’s waited all these years for this chance.”

  “So this is the same as what Eli Serino wanted,” Levi said, swallowing hard. “Tell me, Ellis, is part of your job description to deliver vengeance?”

  “What?” she said, her head shaking.

  “I told you, I’m the reason my brother is dead. What could Brody possibly want other than . . .”

  “Levi, listen to me.” Aubrey’s voice fell to a hush, the soft tone filling the generic entry hall. “Talk to me. Trust me. I swear to you. It’ll be all right—all of it.” She tugged on his arm. To her surprise, he allowed his hand to be drawn into hers. Aubrey felt compassion, startled by his need for human comfort. “Tell me what you did. Explain to me why your brother’s death is your fault.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Thousand Oaks, California

  1994

  “Dear God, my sweet boy! I swear, a foot—you’ve grown an absolute foot! Let me look at you!” Her soft hands squeezed Levi’s face. They smelled of a cottony lotion and a trace of lime. Dreamy blue eyes, unlike his, stared at him. Looking into them, Levi felt as if his eyes were open under water. “Handsome . . . just to-die-for handsome!” She made no mention of the glasses, which were new since he’d last seen her. But she was right about the height. Last summer his mother had also crushed him at the door, holding Levi to a safe line well below her bosom. This year he smashed directly into it—then it was like trying to breathe under water. She didn’t seem to notice that either.

  “You’re suffocating him, Jackie. Let the boy go,” his father said, gripping Levi’s shoulder.

  “And you’re being ridiculous as ever!” Levi cued to the high-pitch of false pleasantries, which he often thought was part of their divorce settlement. He caught his father’s impatient glance and his mother’s tense smile as she clung to what he assumed to be her court-ordered civil tone. “What’s the matter, Rick?” His father hated to be called Rick. “Does my show of affection have you in a blue-blood knot? I swear,” she hummed under her breath. Her long nails glided through Levi’s hair. She loved his hair. This made no sense to Levi, since he had his father’s thick hair. But what between his parents did make sense? “It’ll be all I can do to show the child enough love while I have him.”

  “Yes, and if you like, we can review why your time with him is limited.” The stroking stopped and her fingers pressed into his scalp. Sh
e let go and smiled at her son, less tense. But it was followed by another flip remark, and Levi was drawn to her lipstick-covered mouth. He’d watched his mother paint her whole face, kind of like a human paint-by-numbers. She could even do it with a cigarette in her hand, though she repeatedly insisted it was her last one. Levi was awed by the finished face. Everyone was. He knew his mother was beautiful. Not just pretty, the way all the kids in his fourth-grade class thought their mothers were pretty. But the kind of beautiful they put in magazines. Levi had confirmation of this on his last visit, having found a carton of Virginia Slims and an old issue of Playboy in her nightstand drawer. Miss April, 1977. He’d made the mistake of looking through the magazine, not fully prepared to find his mother with a staple through her stomach. Levi was fairly sure this staple was different from the ones she talked about having after he was born. He’d seen most of her anyway; bare body parts didn’t faze her—clearly. But Levi concentrated on his sandals, reminding himself not to open drawers while he was there.

  Jacqueline was busy rebutting his father’s remark about visitation. “Limited because you had the judge in your back pocket, Broderick.” Levi stared harder at the floor. He didn’t want to be the cause of this and yet, he was. From his lower point of view, he saw porcelain fists rise to his mother’s narrow hips. In turn, his father’s hold tightened around his shoulders. He almost panicked. His father could do an abrupt about-face and take him back to Connecticut. He might, no matter what any custody agreement said. Levi hoped not. He had to pee and he loved the pool. Of course, he would use the bathroom first.

  “Enough, Jackie,” he said, yanking Levi closer. “We agreed that exchanges would be diplomatic.”

  “Then maybe you should have brought someone from the British embassy with you.” The jab would likely incite the war his parents had never finished fighting. For some reason, Levi had the stupid idea that a divorce would mean a truce. Nothing like that had happened. Levi looked up, his mother’s pool-water eyes connecting with his. He watched her stand down. She broke eye contact and looked across the room. “Hey, you,” she said, her voice bubbly. Her blond head bobbed around his father’s strapping frame, looking toward Brody, who hadn’t said a word since they arrived. His brother was like that lately, so quiet you could forget he was there. “Cat got your tongue or what? You planning on stayin’? I sure hope so, ’cause I got fun on tap for three!” Levi and their father moved out of the foyer and into the sunken living room, making way for Brody.

  “Hey, J.C., it’s nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me.” Brody waited, not yet at ease, his hand wringing around his watch. It was a new habit, as it was a new watch, a graduation gift from Levi. His father had helped him pick out the military timekeeping piece. Brody seemed far happier with it than the first edition encyclopedias of war, which was Pa’s gift—at least that’s what his brother had called them. Levi had never felt there was much he could do for his big brother, so it pleased him to know Brody was so taken with the watch.

  “Your father thought you tagging along was a good idea, and for once I couldn’t agree more. I hope you brought your trunks. I know you’re an excellent swimmer.”

  “Yes ma’am. First place in the five-hundred-meter freestyle this year.”

  “And mind you,” Pa said, “he forfeited his last weeks’ lifeguarding to super . . . to visit here with Levi.” His father stepped back into the foyer, retrieving one of the suitcases. As he brushed by his mother, Levi heard his accented mumble, “At the very least, I have some assurances my younger son won’t drown while in your care.” She had no snarky reply.

  Levi guessed that was the cause of the latest tension and the reason he hadn’t visited over the Christmas holiday. Last summer, pennies tossed in the deep end of the pool were deeper than Levi thought. The side was suddenly a mile from his outstretched arms. The gardener had pulled him out as a flood of water rushed up his nose. But it was his mother who’d scared him more. She’d cried hysterically as he coughed up chlorinated water, covering him in salty tears and kisses, her breath heavy with the stuff that she kept in the bar. His father would never have been the wiser. Even at ten, Levi knew better than to relay a story like that. But on the return trip to California to collect Levi, his father ran headlong into the gardener. Emilio felt it was his duty to explain his heroics. Levi supposed this was most of the reason that Brody was there. It also explained the tangled mess of roses in the front yard.

  The rest of the reason took a little more thinking, and that’s what Levi had done on the long flight, having finished Treasure Island and The Red Badge of Courage. Naturally, Levi had known his parents all his life, but he always felt as if he had known Brody longer. His half-brother was seven years older. Brody’s mother was American too and had died of something awful that nobody wanted to talk about. According to their father, American heritage was the only thing Rosalee St John had in common with Levi’s mother. Levi often thought this is what he and Brody had bonded over—absentee American mothers. That and Pa, a man for whom fatherhood seemed a greater mystery than The Count of Monte Cristo. Fair or not, Brody had been thrust into the middle of Levi’s broken home. And instead of siding with their father, or worse, taking his stepmother’s side—a woman Brody openly liked—he’d done his best to protect Levi from the fallout. When it came to his parents, Brody was Switzerland. Even so, and despite the pool incident, Levi was surprised that his father had agreed to the terms of the visit. Somewhere over the Grand Canyon, Levi thought maybe that had more to do with Brody and Pa than it did his mother and him.

  Levi had always had a good memory, recalling clearly—from the time he was little—his parents fighting: his mother stumbling in from somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, late at night, and the sounds of the violent outbursts that followed. Smashed crystal marring the library paneling and silent meals where clinking cutlery was the only sound. But even clearer than this, Levi remembered what Brody was going to be. Brody was a soldier, away at military school most of the year. He came home on breaks, although just about the time his peach fuzz hair grew out and his posture looked anything less than rigid, he’d have to go back. Valley Forge Military Academy was an important place; Pa said that all time. Brody was destined to march in their father’s military footsteps. It was an unchangeable fact, like Brody’s eyes were blue and his thumbs double jointed. But over the last year, the things surrounding those facts had changed. Anger, between his father and brother, had invaded their orderly lives once again. It was something Levi had never remembered hearing from Brody before. Then, a few weeks ago, when Pa was out of town, he left Brody in charge.

  At first, things were fine—the two brothers breaking the rules by eating in front of the TV and not brushing their teeth until noon, if at all. But Brody strayed even further. Levi had noticed a lingering odor coming from his bedroom. It smelled like oily burning herbs, the scent hanging in the air longer than his mother’s cigarette smoke. When Levi questioned it, Brody shrugged it off, blaming it on unwashed saltwater swim trunks. “Give me a break, kid! Pa’s not here and Valley Forge isn’t breaking my balls anymore. I’ve got two months until the West Point crap kicks in—so fuck a little stink and mess.” It wasn’t the unlikely show of temper or even the untidiness of Brody’s room. Levi also appreciated the reprieve from spit-spot. It was more about defiance, something he’d never witnessed from the always cooperative Brody. Days later, after Pa had returned, Levi swore the same saltwater, swim trunk smell had moved into the garage.

  Lost in thought, Levi barely felt the poke to his shoulder. Brody was handing him a glass of lemonade. “It’s fine, drink it,” he said. He leaned over, whispering, “Don’t worry, J.C.’s on her best behavior.” This was a reminder of the spiked punch she’d once accidentally served them. Levi had been six at the time.

  The foursome stood in the square living room like mismatched chess pieces. The shag carpet tickled Levi’s toes, and the piped in rock music—the kind his father
hated—seemed to be playing louder than it should. Levi was the only kid at Foxxmore Academy who knew every word to the Rumours album. He peered toward the pool. If it weren’t for Brody, he guessed his father would have insisted it be drained and backfilled. It wasn’t that he felt unsafe with his mother. But compared to living with Pa, the need for instant decisions could be . . . well, life or death. No matter what the upset in Connecticut, Brody wouldn’t let anything bad happen to his brother.

  “Brody, you’re in the room at the end of the hall upstairs. I thought you’d like the extra privacy. Levi likes the one right next to mine. Or at least you did last summer,” his mother said, shaking her head at his height. “You can bunk closer to your brother if you’d rather, sweetie.”

  “No, it’s okay, wherever,” he said, sipping the lemonade.

  “So, Rick, should I put your things into the maid’s quarters? I don’t have live-in help—so if you dare . . .” She swept her hand past the front door and toward the rear room.

  He glanced at his watch. “Do not tempt me, Jackie. Though I truly doubt either of us could stomach it for long. I’ll be off. I’ll be staying in town one night. Brody has the number of the hotel.”

  “What’s the matter, Rick? Afraid a few days in the sun might crack your exterior?”

  “You truly feel a mere fifty-six-hundred-degree-Celsius object could accomplish this after surviving you? Unlikely. Brody, you have the number?”

  “Yes, Pa.” Brody’s hand slipped into the pocket of his seersucker shorts. It was the third time Pa had checked since they’d gotten on the plane. It was always odd to see Brody in street clothes, like today’s lightweight shorts and polo. Levi had two distinct visions of his brother—one in full dress uniform, a wool thing that had to have been suffocating on graduation day weeks ago, and his orange town-issued swim trunks. Brody was always more himself in the swim trunks, his staple summer uniform as he patrolled freedom and Rocky Neck beach.