“I don’t. I’d love to see me happy too, it’s just—” He paused. “So you’re not getting married. What happened with . . . sorry, I don’t remember his—”
“Andy.”
“Did you realize Andy didn’t meet the Grace standard?” He paused again. “A high bar with good reason, of course.”
“No. Nothing so flattering. He kind of broke it off.” She looked down at her folded hands. “Said he wasn’t ready.”
Pete inched back. “What an ass. How blind could he be?”
Grace’s count-on-it smile went crooked. “I don’t know, Pete. You tell me.”
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat—miscues. “My exit from your life was for your own good. Unless he can say the same . . .” Pete shut up. Andy’s sins would have to be indictable to put him in Pete’s league. “I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Mmm. Had I told you this when it happened, I’d be halfway through a box of Kleenex by now. As it is, I’ve returned the bread warmer and steak knives, without plunging one through him. If you know anyone looking to ‘say yes to the dress,’ mine is for sale on Craigslist.”
She shrugged, and Pete was quietly glad things had never progressed that far between them.
“Andy,” she went on, “was good enough to eat the country club deposit. Clearly, I’ll live.”
She put the book on the coffee table and her gaze stayed with it. But seconds later, in pure Grace fashion, she supplied her own “chin up” advice. “Maybe the third time will be the charm, right?”
“Like I said, it’s a deservedly high bar. Obviously, old Andy didn’t meet it. As for me, a lifetime of you having to walk that bar like a tightrope . . . it would have been ridiculously unfair.”
Grace knotted and unknotted her hands. “That’s nice of you. To put it that way.”
“What other way is there to put it?”
She eyeballed Pete. “That you were never in love with me the way you were . . .” She snatched up the paperback, rhythmically thrumming its pages. “So tell me how you’ve been. How are your . . . lives?”
“About the same. Fewer episodes involving Esme when I’m not around my mother, or the energy she brings to a space.” Pete moved his hand in a sweeping motion. “There are still the war stories I visit.”
“In real time or in your sleep?”
“Both. I’m sorry for the world that my day job exists. But as long as it does, it keeps my mind exhausted. So I continue to live with bouts of visitant chaos—”
“Followed by flashes of brilliance.”
Pete crinkled his brow at her claim.
“I’m not so cool that I won’t admit to following your work. Your photos are incredible, Pete. So is your nerve, to be able to get that up close to the things you do—war, oppression, catastrophe . . . death.”
He thought for a moment. “Situations like that, they don’t strike me like they do other people. They should. They don’t.”
“You’re not moved by what you witness? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It’s hard to articulate. More like I’ve seen it all before. Not that a person ever gets used to conflict or tragedy. It’s more like the benefit of a learning curve. I’m witnessing, for the hundredth time, what everyone around me is experiencing for the first.”
“Still, it’s quite—”
“Don’t say ‘brave,’ Grace. It’s not bravery. I’m searching for numbness by way of twenty-first-century wars. Time spent in places like Syria, northern Africa, Afghanistan, it’s a résumé footnote: war zone coping skills. A never-ending thirst for diversions.”
“Your perspective is different. I get that. It doesn’t diminish what you’re doing.” A scrapbook lay on the coffee table. “Is Aubrey keeping a page-turning account?”
Pete shrugged.
“Mind if I have a look?”
He repeated the gesture, and Grace pulled the large scrapbook onto her lap.
One page in and Pete realized he’d never looked at his work from this angle: an artistic presentation of mayhem. Something only his mother would arrange, maybe the Whitney Museum. The distinguished New York venue had contacted him about an exhibition of his work. Pete had never returned the calls or e-mails. He didn’t want that kind of attention. Each photo—war-torn regions, a terrorist attack in Paris, an avalanche in Italy—was an individual moment of heartbreak and terror, all captured through his eye. It was another anomaly that had taken root in his youth.
When Pete’s fascination with basement war models had worn out, about the time he turned fifteen, he’d picked up a camera. It was an old, first-of-its-generation digital model that belonged to his father. Photography had provided a crafty diversion, a counterweight to his past life visits and his psychic woes. When his photography progressed to images that told a story, Pete realized how it also busied his mind. At first, Aubrey and Levi were encouraging. But hope turned on his parents when Pete left to photograph real wars.
His twenty-second birthday was marked by a fierce argument between Pete and his parents. He blew out candles and announced that he was leaving home, leaving Brown. Not to study abroad, but to pursue something more precarious than his own life.
“I don’t know how we stop him, Aubrey,” his father had said. “He’s of age. He’s not asking us for anything, not even a ride to the airport. He’s a brilliant photographer, a solid writer. Yes, it’s dangerous, but is it really any more dangerous than the lives he’s been living? And who knows, maybe it will help Pete find answers about his past life that we can’t give him . . .”
Six years later, Pete didn’t have any better answers, but he had a noteworthy career. It was a surprising coup for a guy who spent much of this life just trying to get through it.
“The Surrey City Press ran this one.” Grace pointed to a photo of an Afghan village ravaged by the Taliban. “Of course, that was after the New York Times ran it, right?”
Pete didn’t reply. The photo depicted a lone girl moments after a bomb blast. She held a doll whose face was equally smeared in blood, their dresses tattered and soiled. Pete touched the photo. He could still hear the voices. He’d taken a burst of photos before calling the girl to his side. Less than thirty seconds later, another blast went off where she’d stood. He’d had no hearing in his left ear for weeks.
After the photo, after the explosions, Pete had spoken to the girl. In a language he did not understand, by way of an intense spirit, he conveyed words that caused the girl’s dark eyes to startle so much her bloody face became secondary. In broken English, she’d offered back the message “Mama says: ‘I love you, my little one. Papa and I will miss you so much. Tell the man with the camera to take you to the Red Cross. In Saghar, they will find Navi. My sister, she will come for you.’”
It wasn’t the first time something like this had occurred, and Pete gathered up the blood-streaked girl, carrying her a mile to the Red Cross station. As he left her, Pete heard, “Rahmat . . . rahmat . . .” While he didn’t understand the words, he understood gratitude, how much a mother only wanted her child to be safe.
Grace marveled at the photos and Pete smiled humbly. There was satisfaction in facilitating awareness; it was good work. In addition to the scrapbook, on the staircase of the St John home was a wall of photos—a parental homage. His parents and Grace knew a little about the messages he ferried, the lives he’d altered for the living. But Pete was also leery of his brilliant photographs. How would the world perceive the photographer if it knew the truth? Would he still be brilliant, or just brilliantly flawed?
As Grace continued to flip through the book, Pete rubbed his gauze-covered hand over three days of stubble. He moved his gaze between the pictures in the album and the ones on the fireplace mantel. One photo in particular caught his eye: his maternal grandfather, Peter Ellis. His namesake, his mind-sake. Pete knew how the world would see him: a madman, just like his grandfather.
“What are these?” Grace pointed, drawing his attention back to the scrapbook.
“They’re beautiful. So different.”
Pete tipped his head at the postcard-size images. After a bitch of a tour through the pirate-plagued east coast of Africa, he’d retreated to London, awaiting his next assignment. The city was too noisy, filled with too many people.
A guy on the train mentioned Walberswick, a rural respite a few hours north. The place sounded like heaven to Pete, and he took off in that direction. The beach hut he rented had no running water, no electricity, and a squeaky cot—an upgrade from some of the places he’d spent recent nights. While creature comforts were in short supply, what he did find in the hut were paints and small canvases. Outside the hut, Pete also found astonishingly tranquil views. He’d never painted before, or at least not since grade school. In Walberswick, the weary traveler from two lives discovered a new way to relax his mind.
Pete had stood by the River Blyth, indulging in quiet and painting small landscapes—the bumpy beach, tufts of grass, the sky, and waterfowl. The local color. Then he decided to photograph the images he’d painted, delving into elaborate post-processing techniques while drinking tea and eating scones in a nearby café. He painstakingly adjusted the color temperature, exposure, contrast, and clarity, toyed with hues and saturation—luminosity. Various filters resulted in a vintage look. He’d laughed at the finished products, thinking the canned filters on Instagram couldn’t have produced better iterations. Ultimately, Pete thought the final products were pretty, if not pretty useless. Not sure what else to do with photographed paintings, he packed up his art projects and sent them to his mother. He thought she might like to have something born out of the softer, gentler side of her son.
Pete smiled, recalling those transient days in Walberswick. “They’re nothing,” he said. “Painting them was a distraction from . . . well, present-day battlefields and the ones not so present. I was messing around. Paints, the camera—de-stressing.”
“Pete, we dated for almost three years, lived together for part of it. I never knew you could paint.”
He absorbed the scenes and spoke wistfully: “Neither did I.”
Grace brushed her slender fingers over the images. “You haven’t really said, how is your past life? Are you coping?”
He flexed the bandaged hand. “I was doing okay until I got to . . . here.” He looked around the craftsman—the place representative of his mother, all her energy. “The house is so connected to her, sometimes I think it knows I’m here.”
“Like the Amityville horror, it knows you’re here?”
“No. Nothing so over-the-top. At least not B-movie-grade terror.” Explanation was cumbersome, even with Grace. “When inanimate objects take on a vibe, they’re often connected to a person. That makes me pay attention. Generally, it means there’s a spiritual entity bonding the physical world to an ethereal one.”
“Something like your mother’s ghost gifts.”
“Something like that. Because I’ve lived my whole life in this house, my surroundings never stuck out. Not until I left.”
“I’m not sure I’m following. I thought being around your mother was the trigger.”
“It is. For sure my mother’s psychic gift exacerbates mine. After twenty-plus years . . .” Pete gingerly flexed his bandaged hand. “That’s a definite conclusion.” He took in the tangible elements that defined the circa-1900 home: stone fireplace, antique millwork, buffed hardwoods. “The house plays a part because I associate it with her, probably because she’s lived here for so long.”
“Interesting. Even so, have you ever looked into the house, its history?”
“No. But it’s like every other old house on this street. I know my mother bought it with her first husband.”
“Whoa . . . first husband? Now this is really getting interesting.”
“Not so much. My mom was briefly married to somebody else before Pa. They bought the house together. From what I know, her first husband spent about a dozen nights here before the marriage went south.”
“What a fascinating tidbit. What was his name?”
“Whose name?”
“Her first husband.”
“Oscar.” The “O” name dropped from Pete’s mouth without thinking. “No . . . that wasn’t it.” He shook his head. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’ll look up the sale in town records—curiosity.” Grace’s job, working for the town of Surrey, gave her access to all sorts of records. It was great if you wanted a parking ticket to disappear; otherwise Grace could sometimes come off as a busybody.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look it up. I don’t think of this house as belonging to anyone but them, our house. Even if being here is never the mother-and-son reunion we’d like.”
She closed the scrapbook. “Forget I said anything.”
“It’s forgotten.” He glanced at his watch. “As it is, this family reunion is on a timer. I’m on a flight to Iceland tonight.”
Grace gently touched the cover of the scrapbook. “And from there you can continue to what, run from this life . . . and that one?”
“Here we go. If you wanted to partake in the usual past life regression theory-slash-argument, you should have showed up for breakfast.”
“I was only thinking of your mother. It’s hard for you, Pete, no one denies that.” She paused; he waited. Old habit. “But it’s just as hard on Aubrey. My gosh.” She flailed a hand at the paperback. “She can’t have a conversation in a grocery store about you without tearing up.”
“Thanks, Grace. I’m well aware of the happiness I don’t bring to my mother’s life. It’s been part of the package deal pretty much since I arrived.” He held up a hand to her incoming remark. “I also get that all anyone wants to do is help. Aside from encouraging past life regression experiments, an idea that couldn’t appeal to me less, I’m not sure anyone can.”
“Okay, but surely you’d like to find some resolution.”
“How?” he said. “And to what end? Everybody’s so hot on the idea of forcing those memories to the surface. Why? What’s in it for me but discovering my motive, learning how I ultimately got rid of Esme’s body? No matter how much you and my parents claim to understand, you’re hearing a story. What you don’t grasp is that my past life is as real to me as this one.”
“Fair enough. But I wouldn’t want answers at this point. I’d need them.” She folded her arms, her gaze searing him. “If it were me—”
“Well, it’s not.” Pete returned the hot stare. “Are you sure you and my mother didn’t have a full-on strategy session at Trader Joe’s?” He sank farther into the sofa cushion. “I have a normal life, Grace. Maybe not by your standards or theirs.” Pete pointed to a room permeated with his parents’ lives. “Why can’t all of you let it go? It’s not like I’m living on the streets, consumed by hallucinations—which is how most medical professionals would define my experiences. I’ve done all right for a guy who’s got one foot in this life and a trench foot in another.”
She ducked back. “What did you say?”
“About what?”
“Trench foot.”
“Nothing.” Palpable agitation swirled around her; Pete stood. “I was making a point. You misunderstood. Look, thanks for stopping by, even if it was based on my mother’s lame attempt at rekindling romance. But I think we both agree, we’re not a thing. We haven’t been for a long time.”
“You’re right.” Grace stood as well. “Had I still felt that way about you, I would have never agreed to marry anyone else. Regardless of how it worked out—or didn’t.”
He backed up a step, feeling shitty all over again for having done the dumping between the two of them. “Grace, that came out—”
“You know what else, Pete?” Her tone was clear code for “don’t answer that.” “If I never said so, I should have tha
nked you for not letting me spend my life chasing after yours, dodging your . . . outbursts.”
“At least you realize how unfair it would have been, saddling your life with the . . . insanity that’s mine.” He rarely said the word aloud, but Pete needed to emphasize that his choices had been in Grace’s best interest.
“No. You were the one hyperfocused on that. And I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been difficult. I’m not even saying I would have been happy. You’ve zero capacity to make anyone happy, least of all yourself.” He sobered further at the cutting remark. “The reason I’m glad you broke things off is because I hate the idea of having almost spent my life with a man who, at best, is in love with a ghost.”
ACT I, SCENE II NEW YORK CITY 1917
“Everybody out!” Oscar shouted. “If you want to eat this week, we’ve got some making up to do.” Gas lanterns lit the alley sign for Hupp’s Supper Club & Hotel.
“You’re not serious, Oscar?” Esmerelda put the doll aside. It was an awkward climb from the back of the buckboard to the front, and a gold lamé gown didn’t help. Barney, Bill, and Jimmie moved in the opposite direction. Cora sat like a lump of earth, poking her fingers through a crate that held a cat. Esmerelda hovered behind Oscar, who sat at the reins. “After what happened at Albee’s? You expect me to sing, to go on?”
He twisted toward her. “I might not, Miss Moon, if we’d collected the door from Percy. But you know how it works. Acts don’t get their cut until the crowd’s cleared out, satisfied customers.”
“But that wasn’t our fault.”
“Very astute, girl, but Percy doesn’t give a shite about why he had to make refunds.” He fished into his pocket, coming up with their meager tips, most of which was the nickel he’d given Bill prior to showtime. “Look at the bright side. For Hupp, you only have to open your mouth to sing. It’s got to be easier than making contact with the dead.” While it was true—singing being Esmerelda’s God-given gift—she didn’t budge from Oscar’s whisker-filled ear. He aimed a glance at her. “Listen, it’s thanks to you Mr. Hupp’s agreed to put in most of our acts. But we’ve talked about this. You’ve got to play nice, Esmerelda. It’s your singing he’s after.”
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