Chasing Happy

by Jenni M. Rose

  He squinted and looked off into the distance where Max and Dallas were finally being brought back to shore by a Police boat.

  “They’ll never fully understand where people like us come from,” he told her. “To them, being poor or beaten or neglected is just an idea. Something that happens to other people. Me and you? We’re the other people. But we can be more than they made us think.” He looked at her and pushed off the hood of the truck. “I guess that’s what I've been trying to get at here. That every second we spend dwelling on the past is just another second of the future we’re missing. Don’t miss out because of them.” He slapped a hand on the hood. “Let your future be what you want it to be. Not what they told you it would be.”

  With that, he waked away leaving Rosie completely and utterly flummoxed. He was right, of course. She couldn’t let he past dictate her future for one more second but she never expected such wise words from someone she’d written off.

  That was on her. He’d never done anything to wrong her personally. He’d done his job. She’d been the one that had been jaded about him from the get go.

  She looked out at Max who was now reaching the shore. He was the real push she’d needed to not live in the past anymore, to somehow merge Happy and Rosie and figure out who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do with her life.

  But it was up to her to stand on her own two feet and decide her future. If that included Max, she’d be happy. Scared and completely inexperienced, but happy. He’d be the icing on top of the cake. The main course would be taking her life back. Though her mother was dead and she’d run well and far from her past, Max was right when he said she was still living in Happy’s shadow.

  It was time for her to step out of that shadow she was so used to hiding in.

  34

  Rosie scratched her nails across her palm.

  She spent so long hiding from life, the fact that she’d sought out another person was enough to make her quake a bit on the inside.

  But sitting on Max’s porch swing surrounded by all the Murphy’s, she knew she was doing the right thing. The discovery of the remains in Smith’s Cove had been huge news in Jacob’s Beach. It had even made the national news in the weeks since when forensics had dated the body to be more than sixty years old.

  Rosie had thought the discovery of the remains would have given Helene the peace she so craved, but it hadn’t. She remained on the edges of Rosie’s existence. She followed, fairly unobtrusive but still present, as if she needed more.

  And she did.

  She needed her son to know the truth.

  It had taken some doing, but Max had finally convinced his father to call Jack, Helene’s son and let him know the remains that had been found were his mother’s. Mr. Murphy worried about not having proof to back up his claims, with good reason. He didn’t want to cause his cousin any more pain than necessary but Max was insistent, and Rosie was positive she could prove it to Jack if she could just get him face to face. And it had to be today. If they were going to do this, Rosie insisted, this was the day they had to do it.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Mr. Murphy had been convinced of her talents when Rosie had told him about his mother following her around at work. Since then, he'd shown nothing but respect and concern for her. The feeling was foreign and it reminded her of how hard it was getting used to Max’s natural calming effect.

  Rosie nodded in answer to Mr. Murphy’s question.

  “He needs to know.”

  Max’s fingers toyed with her hair, his arm stretched out along the back of the porch swing behind her. Despite what had happened at the cove and the morbid reality surrounding them, they’d had a lovely few weeks together.

  With her barriers finally down, Rosie was able to enjoy what it was to be in love with Max. The ins and outs of living every day and learning how he ticked. She knew he laughed a lot when he talked on the phone to his father. He had a pair of slippers but he never wore them. He also had a pair of reading glasses and he never wore those either. He didn’t like ketchup or chewy candy or jalapeños.

  Max asked her nearly every day, in that casually passive way of his, if she was ready to move her things over to his house from her camper. She wasn't. Not yet. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but the thought of losing her space made her very uncomfortable.

  She loved Max. There was no more doubt swirling inside her. She’d fallen. End of story.

  But losing the place that kept her safe wasn’t something she felt she could give up. So, she paid her rent and kept it clean, even if she wasn’t actively staying there all the time.

  Rosie turned her head at the sound of a car pulling up to Max’s house.

  This had to be Jack.

  Helene stood at the bottom of the porch steps, wringing her hands.

  Since being found, the ghost had lost the look of a woman that had been murdered. Her hair was neat and tidy, her clothes a beautiful representation of the era.

  She turned nervous eyes up to Rosie as the man got out of his car.

  Rosie was nervous but hopeful that they’d all be able to close this chapter of their lives and find some peace.

  Jack slowly made his way around the car. Rosie stood, watching as he unknowingly stopped right next to his mother.

  He looked up at them, his face a blank mask, but his aura pulsing with the dark gray waves of doubt as he stood imposingly in a dark suit. Of course, he was doubtful, she reminded herself. He had no reason to believe.

  “He looks just like his father,” Helene whispered.

  “Jack,” Sam greeted him with a hand shake.

  Christine followed and Max pulled her along to do the same. Social graces were not her strong suit, her instincts urging her to stay on the porch and keep her distance. When he told her he didn’t believe her, she would be far enough away that the sting might not hurt so bad.

  Old habits die hard, she thought as she put her hand in Jack’s at their introduction.

  “I know you don’t believe,” she told him, wasting no time. His unemotional mask faltered and she knew he wasn’t someone used to hiding what he felt. “That’s okay,” she assured him.

  “I came because I trust Sam and if he says I need to hear what you have to say, then I believe him.”

  He believed Sam but not her. He was making the difference clear.

  “I understand,” she assured him because she did. This was old hat to her.

  “Why don't we sit down.” Christine motioned to the porch where she had a spread of sweet tea and cookies set out like they were having a party.

  Max led her to sit back on the porch swing while the others sat in chairs across from them.

  Helene hovered behind Jack, just looking down at him with watery eyes.

  “I always thought he’d grow up to be a carpenter,” the spirit said, her eyes never leaving her son. “He loved to build things. Bird houses and little derby cars.” She looked up at Rosie for a second and then back to Jack. “I never imagined him behind a desk.”

  “So, you think that was my mother out there?” Jack asked.

  She liked that he wasn’t beating around the bush or walking on eggshells. The least she could do was respond in kind.

  “I do,” she told him. “I know it is.”

  “And how do you know?”

  “Because she led me there.”

  Jack watched her then. Maybe looking for the lie in her eyes or a motive for her to tell such a tall tale. He wouldn’t find any of those things.

  “Is she here?” The doubt still clung to him and Rosie knew he wasn’t asking because he believed her.

  He was testing her.

  “She is.” She pointed her finger over his shoulder. “She’s right behind you.”

  His face fell and he paled.

  “It’s been very important to her that you know that she never left you. I think that’s why she’s still here.”

  “There were witnesses that saw her leaving town with another man
,” he argued. “Her clothes were gone. Her things, packed and gone when we got home. She left us.”

  “Never!” Helene blasted an angry wind around them, swirling around their heads and they all lifted their hands to block their faces.

  Rosie sent him a look when it died down a second later.

  “That’s your mother. Disagreeing.” She shot her eyes to Helene, who still looked angry. “Stop it. Let him tell us what happened from his side.”

  Max’s hand slipped inside of hers and she was immediately grateful for the support.

  “I’m supposed to believe my dead mother did that?” Jack asked skeptically.

  Rosie waved him off with her free hand. “You’ll believe what you believe. I can only tell you the truth as I know it, through your mother. What you do from there is up to you.”

  “And she’s disagreeing. That she didn’t pack her things and leave us.”

  “I’m curious about this witness that saw her leaving with a man. To be honest, I really don’t know much of anything about this situation other than what I’ve learned from Mr. Murphy,”

  “Sam,” Max’s father corrected.

  “Sam,” she parroted, the name still feeling awkwardly informal on her tongue.

  “A family friend saw my mother embrace another man, put a suitcase in his car and drive away with him. She never came back.”

  Rosie could see that talking about this was emotional for Jack. Though his story was void of what his personal experience was it clearly affected him very deeply. His voice was rough with emotion and his cheeks were flushing the more they spoke.

  Rosie narrowed her eyes, suspiciously. “And who was this family friend?”

  “His name was Edwin. He was a friend of my father’s.”

  “Were his initials EML?” She asked, remembering the jacket that was thrown over Helene’s face when she was thrown into her grave.

  Jack sat up, leaning back and away from her.

  “They were,” his voice was quiet.

  “The police found a piece of clothing covering your mother’s remains. It was a jacket. A suit jacket. The initials EML were embroidered on the lapel,” she told him.

  “I didn’t hear that in the news. Did the police tell you that?” He looked to Max. “I know you have a friend on the department. Has he been sharing details with you two?”

  Max shook his head. “Dallas isn’t allowed to be involved with the investigation because he was one of the people that found the body.”

  Jack flicked his eyes back to Rosie. “Then how do you know?”

  “Because I saw when he threw the jacket over her face. He thought she was looking at him.”

  He sucked in a breath and if anything, tried to sit further away.

  “What do you mean you saw it?”

  “I know what Mr. Murphy told you. I know he told you about the things I see. They aren’t always nice. They aren’t pleasant. But your mother showed me that for a reason. The witness that told everyone she left town was the same man that killed her.”

  Helene nodded. “He was a monster.”

  “Your mother never liked him,” Rosie continued. “She felt like he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That he insinuated himself into your lives for some reason. He made her nervous. She showed me a time when you would bring her flowers,”

  Jack put a hand to his mouth.

  “I can see the kitchen. I can smell the cookies, fresh from baking. She dusted them with powdered sugar because she knew you liked them that way. The walls were yellow and there was an old wooden ice box instead of a refrigerator. Her apron was robin’s egg blue and there was a hole in the bottom left corner from where she snagged it on the nail-”

  “-in the old wood shed,” Jack finished quietly.

  “He came home with you one of those days that you and your father brought her flowers. She sensed it then, the danger in him. But your father, he was so kind.”

  “So kind,” Helene repeated.

  “He couldn’t see the bad in people. And so, he came around more and more. Sometimes, without your father. No matter how many times or how many ways she refused him, he persisted.”

  Rosie looked at Helene then, finally seeing everything the spirit had been trying to show her. “It was a day you were at work with your father. He came and told me there’d been an accident, in the woods. That you were hurt. I didn’t understand why you weren’t at work with Jerry but I was blinded by instinct.”

  “Rosie?” Max’s hand squeezed hers.

  She was beyond him, now. Helene, while not possessing her in the traditional sense was driving the car. Rosie, like the rest of them, was just a bystander.

  “We ran, headlong into the woods. I knew we were heading to the old tree house.” Her eyes met Jack’s. “I’d told you hundreds of times not to play there but you always did anyway. When I got there, you were nowhere to be found. It was just Edwin and I alone.” Rosie’s head shook back and forth. “I said no. Just like every other time he expressed interest in me, I said no.”

  Rosie felt Max get up and walk away.

  “He wouldn’t listen,” she continued. “I said no and when he tried to force himself on me I pushed him off. He-” she paused then and just stared at Jack. “I never would have left you. The only thing I ever wanted more than your father in this life, was you. I wanted to watch you laugh and love. I wanted to watch you grow into a young man. I wanted to sit in the front row at church and watch you get married while holding your father’s hand. All I’ve ever wanted was you, Jackie.”

  Rosie blinked back into herself and looked around. Nothing had changed. Helene was still looking on expectantly from behind Jack while Sam and Christine looked on.

  It was Max, kneeling at her feet that was new.

  She looked down at him.

  “What are you doing?” She asked, feeling like she missed something.

  He held up her hand to show her a big, ugly ring on her index finger.

  “Jay gave it to me,” he told her quietly. “A spirit blocker.”

  “Oh,” she said stupidly.

  “No more of that.” His voice was firm. “Can she hear me?”

  Helene nodded and so did Rosie, passing the message along.

  “No more, Helene.”

  “That was her,” Jack sounded like he was somewhere between awe and questioning.

  “She has a tendency to invite herself into Rosie’s body,” Max complained. “And she isn’t welcome to do it.”

  “It’s okay,” Rosie assured him. Completely different than last time, she hadn’t felt the eeriness of watching from the inside. It had been different somehow. She didn’t feel like she’d been invaded or violated, as she had before.

  “I’m sorry,” Helene said softly, “I don’t know how that happened.”

  Rosie looked up to Jack. “He wanted her and when she said no, he dragged her through the woods and he killed her. Telling you all she left with another man was just him covering his tracks. That coat will turn out to be his and that body will turn out to be your mother.” Rosie shook her head at the injustice of it all. “She never left you. Not willingly at least.”

  Jack was quiet for a moment.

  “And you’re saying it was Edwin that did this? That all this time, the man who was like an uncle to me, murdered my mother.”

  Rosie held her hand out to Max and helped him back into the seat next to her.

  “Edwin LaClaire,” Helene spat.

  Rosie repeated the name back to Jack and some of the dark gray in his aura dissipated. It lingered, his doubt still present, but she was making headway.

  “He was my father’s best friend,” Jack reasoned. “He sat with me at my father’s funeral.”

  “Jerry’s gone?” Helene’s whisper held a note of pain Rosie knew could only be grief. Isolated as she must have been, Helene would never have known Jerry had passed.

  “How long ago did your father die?” Rosie asked.

  “Oh, going on fifteen years,” Jack sa
id. “Edwin died about five years after dad.”

  Max sat back. “So, the killer died?” He sounded mystified. “If this wasn’t about getting justice for Helene, what was it for?”

  Rosie pointed at the man in front of them. “It’s for him. So he knows the truth.”

  “But,” Max argued, “Didn’t she want justice? I thought this whole time we were trying to find out what happened to her. You know, make things right.”

  Rosie shrugged. “I don’t think she cares much about that. She just wants her son to know she loves him. That she’d never leave him.”

  A warm breeze crossed her face, her hair shifting and blowing. She closed her eyes and with the wind came a wave of relief so great it made Rosie sag a bit her seat.

  “Thank you,” a voice whispered across her skin.

  Rosie opened her eyes and Helene was gone.

  35

  By the time spring rolled around things at the farm were bustling from sun-up to sun down, including Max.

  Rosie spent most of her free time there, sometimes trying to help and sometimes just watching.

  Hannah still followed Max everywhere and even though she’d told him it wouldn’t make difference, Max set up a dog bed in the corner of his bedroom.

  Her own job kept her busy as well. Working for Wendy was as therapeutic as it had always been. Grandma Murphy still made an occasional appearance but had toned it down on the Henry the VIII routine.

  She still rode her bike to the bus stop every day and rode the bus to work. She still went to her camper to clean and trade outfits every few days. There was something about having her own space that she couldn’t give up. Deep down she knew it was because it was something she worked so hard for, something all her own.

  In theory, she wanted to say yes when Max asked her to move in. She wanted to be the kind of person who could make a quick change on the fly but that wasn’t her and Max knew it. He accepted her quietly placating rejections with ease and grace.

  In fact, he had a knack for knowing when she needed a little space. She’d go to leave for work one morning and he’d say, “Why don’t you call me from the trailer when you’re ready to be picked up tonight.”