Ghosted

by Rosie Walsh

  Silence. Reuben’s eyes rolled over to mine, wide with shock.

  Kaia’s face had paled. “Sure,” she began, although I knew she had no idea what to say next. “I . . . well, I’ve just been trying to help with a few things that Reuben needed off his desk . . . And Sarah’s deputy, Kate, seemed to . . .” She fiddled with the ring that sat halfway up her finger and I realized her hands were shaking.

  This is neither the problem nor the solution, I thought. I was so tired. So desperately tired.

  “I’m sorry,” Kaia said after a pause. “I didn’t want to be inappropriate. I realize I’ve probably been here a bit too often . . .” Her eyes filled with tears.

  Instinctively, I stepped forward, but Jenni stopped me. “I’ve got this,” she said, passing Kaia a tissue. She didn’t put her arm around her. I watched in horror and fascination as my friend directed all of her rage and disappointment at the woman crying at our meeting table.

  Reuben was paralyzed.

  “I . . . lost a . . . It just really helps me to come here . . .” Kaia was backing off now; an animal half run over. “I’m sorry. It just helps me. I’ll stop coming. I . . .” She moved toward the door.

  And suddenly I knew. “Kaia,” I said quietly. “Hang on a second.”

  She hovered.

  “Look, that story you told me, the day I met you,” I said, and her face slackened, became all loose and billowy somehow, like a tent with its poles removed. “The story about the boy on the oncology ward. Who our clowns cheered up.” The tent collapsed completely and there it was: a human being razed to the bone. “Was he your son?” I asked.

  Reuben stared at me. Kaia took a slow, potholed breath and nodded.

  “Phoenix,” she said. “He was my boy, yes.”

  I closed my eyes. This poor woman.

  “How did you know?” Reuben asked, stunned.

  When I’d opened our mail this morning, I’d found a letter from a couple called Brett and Louise West. Four months after losing their son, they had finally managed to put pen to paper; said we were their first letter. Thank you so much . . . It vastly improved his last few weeks . . . Can we help your organization at all? . . . Would love to come and volunteer . . . Would be great to give something back . . . Make ourselves useful . . .

  It had made me wonder again about Kaia, and why she was here. I wasn’t convinced it was just because of Reuben.

  A few days earlier we had had a call to say that a child we’d been working with for months was in remission and ready to go home. Kaia, who had never met the child, had broken down in tears. “A second chance,” I’d heard her saying to my deputy, Kate, who’d announced the news. “A second chance at life. Oh, that is a blessed thing.”

  And it was a blessed thing. We’d all cheered. But I had watched Kaia, long after everyone had gone back to work, and I’d wondered. Wondered if maybe there had been someone in her life who had not been given a second chance.

  And as I watched her trying hopelessly to explain herself to Jenni just now, it seemed obvious that the little boy she’d told me about the day we met had been her own. She had lost her son, and with him an irreplaceable part of herself. And at some point, when she was able to get out of bed, to breathe, she had arrived in the nonprofit sector—just like the two parents who had written to us today; like me, and so many others—because it felt like the only conceivable way of forging good from bad. Of keeping going.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She nodded. “Me too. And I apologize for having been here too much. My partner and I split up last year; we couldn’t get past it. So it’s been . . . lonely. Not that that’s your problem, but it . . . it just kind of helps, being here.”

  I closed my eyes. I was so bloody tired. “I get it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I watched them leave. Jenni was slumped at the end of the table.

  I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Stop it,” I said quietly. “You weren’t to know.”

  Jenni just shook her head.

  “Look, Jen, I’m touched that you were willing to stick up for me, and for the team, the way you did. You were polite; you were nice; you handed her a tissue. What more could you have done?”

  “I could have said nothing,” she said. Her voice was gluey with guilt. “I could have just let her be.”

  I rubbed her shoulders, staring out the window. One of my legs started shaking and I sat down next to her.

  “The worst of it is, we’re in the same boat, me and Kaia,” Jenni said dully. “There’s a part of both of us missing. Although she actually had a child, Sarah, and he was taken away from her, and . . . Oh, my God, can you even imagine?”

  When eventually she recovered, I told her I needed to go. “I think I need to go to the walk-in clinic. I’m not . . . I’m not functioning very well at the moment, am I?”

  “No,” Jenni said squarely, and I almost smiled. “But how’s the doctor supposed to help? You’re not going to ask for medication, are you?”

  I paused. “No,” I said. “I just need to . . . talk.”

  She frowned. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

  “I do. And thank you again,” I said. “For earlier. Your heart was in the right place.”

  Jenni sighed. “Oh, I know. I’m going to bake her the biggest cake. Out of vegetables, or green powders, or something. It’ll be great.”

  * * *

  • • •

  A few moments later the door to our building clicked behind me. I felt the muffled punch of a boiling July lunchtime, steadied myself against the doorframe. I wanted to sleep, only I couldn’t stand the silence of Jenni and Javier’s. I wanted to sit in cooled air, only I couldn’t go back to work. I wanted—

  I froze.

  Eddie. I wanted Eddie. But deep inside my brain, something had to be misfiring, because he was there.

  There.

  Right across Vermont Avenue. Waiting for the traffic lights to change. Looking straight at me.

  No!

  Yes.

  I stood stock still. I stared at him. A long, red Metro bus snaked along between us for what felt like hours. Then it was gone and he was still there. Still looking right at me.

  I felt numb as I looked at him. There was a strange quiet, suddenly, out of step with the thunder of traffic passing between us. The lights changed and a white pedestrian light invited me to walk toward him, but I didn’t, because he was walking toward me, and he was still looking right at me. He was wearing shorts, the same shorts he’d been wearing the day we met. The same flip-flops. They smacked across the boiling road, and above them swung the same arms that had wrapped me like a present while I slept.

  Eddie was coming. Across the world, across the road.

  Until he turned round suddenly and retreated to the other side. The pedestrian sign held up a red hand, counted down three, two, one, and the traffic resumed. Eddie looked at me over his shoulder, then he made off down the street.

  By the time the lights changed again and I was able to run across the road, he had disappeared down Lexington Avenue. I stood on the corner of Lexington and Vermont, stunned by the enormity of my feelings. Even now, after weeks of humiliation.

  Nothing had changed. I was still in love with Eddie David. Only now I knew—I could no longer deny it—exactly who he was.

  I set off toward the walk-in clinic.

  * * *

  • • •

  The sun was sinking low over the west of the city. Below me, silvery roads ran dead straight to the horizon, lost in trembling haze and smog. Helicopters shared the sky with birds of prey riding thermal currents; hikers beetled up and down the paths carved into the hillside like scars.

  I’d been up here two hours. More, probably. Alone on my favorite bench near the observatory in Griffith Park. The tourists had
mostly left, anxious to get away before darkness fell. A few remained, anxious to photograph a perfect sunset. And among them I had sat quietly, trying to forget what the doctor had said earlier, concentrating instead on my week with Eddie. Waiting for the clue to reveal itself to me. I hadn’t found it yet, but I was close. It was amazing what you could find, once you knew what you were looking for.

  I’d combed my way through almost to the end and now, as the sun bled all over the unseen Pacific, I was thinking about our final morning together. The brightness outside, the sense of loss as we said good-bye, the excitement at what was to come. He was leaning against the newel post on his stairs. The window was open and I could smell the fusty sweetness of the hawthorn blossom, the clean tang of warming grass. My eyes were closed. He was kissing me, a hand in the small of my back. He rested his nose against mine, eyes closed, and we talked. He gave me a flower, took my numbers, added me on Facebook, gave me Mouse for safekeeping. He said, I think I might have fallen in love with you. Is that too much?

  No, I’d said. It’s perfect. And then I left.

  I imagined him turning away when I’d gone, climbing the remaining steps. Picking up the tea he’d left at the top. Maybe pausing to take a sip. He still had his phone in one hand, because we’d just exchanged details. Perhaps he sat on a chair by the window and took a look at my Facebook profile. He’d scroll down, maybe, and—

  I reached for my phone.

  I felt oddly calm as I searched my own Facebook page. And there, of course, it was. A friendly message from Tommy Stenham, on June 1, 2016.

  Welcome home, Harrington! Hope you had a good flight. Can’t wait to see you.

  I put my shoes back on. I walked back toward the observatory and ordered an Uber. While I waited for it to arrive, I got out my phone and started writing. I had my answer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Eddie,

  I know who you are.

  For years I used to dream about meeting you. The dreams took place in the darkest edges of my mind and in them you never really had a face or a voice. But you were always there, and it was always awful.

  Then you were there, really there, that day in June, sitting on the green at Sapperton with a sheep. You were smiling at me, buying me drinks, and you were lovely. And I didn’t have a clue.

  The world tastes like it did the summer I turned seventeen. Like bile in my throat.

  We need to talk. Face-to-face. Below is my American cell number. Please call it. We can arrange to meet.

  Sarah

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Sarah Mackey,” Jenni said. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”

  I slid off my leather sandals and perched on the edge of a barstool. “Sorry. I left my phone on silent. Are you okay?”

  Jenni ducked my question, padding off to get us some water. “I can fix you a soft drink if you prefer,” she said, handing me a glass. Her eyes were bloodshot and I could tell she’d been in bed since she’d got back from work.

  Promptly, I burst into tears.

  “What’s happening?” Jenni came back over. She smelled of coconut shampoo and marshmallow skin. “Sarah . . ?”

  How could I explain this squalid, sorry mess to a woman who’d just lost her last, cherished hope of a family? It was unthinkable. She would listen to me, and she would be horrified. And then crushed, because there would be nothing—absolutely nothing—she could do to solve it for me.

  “Tell me,” Jenni said sternly.

  “It was all fine at the doctor’s,” I lied, after a long interval. I blew my nose. “Fine. There are blood tests to come, but everything’s okay.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “But . . . I—”

  My phone started ringing.

  “It’s Eddie,” I said, diving blindly around the room for my phone.

  “What?” Jenni, suddenly capable of lightning reflexes, plucked it out of my bag and hurled it at me. “Is that him?” she asked. “Is that Eddie?”

  And my chest drummed with pain, because it was, and the situation was unbearable. I could never be with him. I had found him at last, and we had no future.

  “Eddie?” I said.

  There was a pause, and then there was his voice, saying hello. Just like I had dreamed it would, only this time it was real. Familiar and strange, perfect and heartbreaking. His voice.

  My own held just long enough for me to say yes, I could meet him tomorrow morning, and yes, Santa Monica Beach was fine; I’d meet him by the bike-rental place just south of the pier at ten.

  “I was beginning to think it was a lie that LA’s on the ocean,” he said. He sounded tired. “I’ve been driving around for days and haven’t seen it once.”

  And then the call was over and I curled myself into the corner of Jenni’s couch and cried like a child.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Dear You,

  Hello, Hedgehog.

  Nearly two weeks have passed since you should have celebrated your birthday, but I still think about you every day. Not just birthdays.

  Sometimes I like to imagine what you would be doing if you were still here. Today I imagined you living in Cornwall; a young, broke artist with paint in her hair. In this version, you study Fine Art at Falmouth and then take over a derelict building high on a hill with your arty friends. You like headscarves and you’re probably vegetarian, and you’re busy getting Arts Council grants, organizing exhibitions, teaching painting to kids. You’re electrifying.

  Then comes the pendulum swing of grief and I remember you’re not in that crazy house on a hill. You’re scattered in a peaceful corner of Gloucestershire, a quiet hum of memory where once was my sunbeam of a sister.

  I wonder if you know about what I’m doing tomorrow morning. I wonder if you know who I’m meeting on the beach. And if you do, I wonder if you will forgive me.

  Because I can’t not go, little Hedgehog. I have to know how you were on the day you died: what you were doing, what you were saying, what you were eating, even. When I had to identify your body, I was pooled in the corner like something melted. It took me hours to get up and drive home. But when I got there, I found a half piece of toast by the sink. Cold and rigid, with the indentation of your little teeth on a corner. Like you’d considered the idea of a final mouthful but then skipped off to do something else.

  What else did you eat that day? Did you sing a song? Did you change your clothes? Were you happy, Hedgehog?

  I have to ask these questions. And I have to figure out why, in spite of everything, I am still in love with the very person who took you away from us all.

  I feel like I’m letting you down so desperately by going tomorrow. I hope you can understand why I am.

  I love you.

  Me xxxx

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I watched a group of kids playing volleyball while I waited for Eddie. I wondered if he would even turn up, and wondered if it would be easier, better, if he didn’t.

  The tide was far out, the beach quiet. A light carpet of cloud hovered between Santa Monica and the fierce sun. The air smelled of something fuggy and sweet—melting sugar, perhaps, or cooking doughnuts—a childhood smell; it lit up an old corner of memory. Long holidays in Devon. Scratchy sand, salty limbs, slippery rocks. The delicate patter of rain on our tent. Whispering late into the night with my little sister, whose presence in my life I had never then thought to question.

  I checked my watch.

  Over on the volleyball court, the kids finished their game and started packing up. The boardwalk rumbled as a lone Rollerblader panted past. I ran damp fingers through my hair. Swallowed, yawned, clenched and unclenched my fists.

  * * *

  • • •

  Eddie’s voice, when it came, was from somewhere behind me. “Sarah?”

  I paused before turning to face him, this man who h
ad lived in my head so many years.

  But when I did look at him, I saw only Eddie David. And I felt only the things I’d felt before I’d realized who he was: the love, the longing, the hunger. The whump! as my body ignited like a boiler.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Eddie didn’t reply. He looked me straight in the eye, and I remembered the day I met him. How I’d thought to myself that his eyes were the color of foreign oceans: full of warmth and good intentions. Today they were cold, almost blank.

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Thanks for coming.”

  A tiny twitch of his shoulders. “I’ve been trying to come and talk to you for the last two weeks. Been staying with my mate Nathan. But I . . .” He trailed off, shrugged.

  “Of course. I understand.”

  A family on yellow rented bikes pedaled along the boardwalk between us and he stepped back, watching me.

  We walked down the beach and sat on the sand where it sloped to the water. For a long time we watched the Pacific crashing in on itself; sheets of silver foam on a relentless journey to nowhere. Eddie had his arms looped around his knees. He took off one of his flip-flops and splayed his toes in the sand.

  The shock of longing almost winded me.

  “I don’t know how to do this, Sarah,” he said eventually. His eyes were glassy. “I don’t know what to say. You . . .” He spread his hands wide, looked helpless.

  Once upon a time Eddie had a sister, a sweet girl called Alex. She had blond, tangly hair. She sang a lot. She had large blue eyes, full of life and plans, and she loved fruity sweets. She had been my sister’s best friend.

  My stomach clenched as I held her in my mind’s eye, waiting for what I knew was coming.

  “You killed my sister,” Eddie said. He took in a sharp breath and I closed my eyes.

  Last time I had heard those words, it had been through the big Panasonic answering machine next to Mum and Dad’s phone. It was one, maybe two weeks after the accident and Hannah had finally been discharged from hospital. She had refused to get into the car with me; refused even to go home. There had been a scene, and eventually a patient transport bus had been found to take her and Mum home, while Dad and I drove.