by Edie Ramer
It felt like a book. It couldn’t be anything worthwhile or Noreen would have kept it for herself or given it to Cassie’s half-brother. She’d used the diamonds from her mother’s engagement and wedding rings and put them into a cocktail ring for herself. Upon hearing about the breakup of Cassie’s engagement, her only concern was Cassie’s ring. Cassie told her she’d thrown it at her ex, who used the woman he’d been screwing as a shield. The ring had bounced off the back of her head.
Her stepmother had opened and closed her mouth soundlessly, like a guppy on dry land, gasping for water, shocked at her misuse of the piece of jewelry.
After all these years, Cassie didn’t know what made her stepmother so hateful to her, and she told herself she no longer cared. The woman was toxic, and Cassie’s best defense was to stay as far away as possible.
Cassie carried the package back to her room, a frown pulling at her forehead. She thought of tossing it in the trash—Noreen wouldn’t send her anything she would like. But her curiosity wouldn’t let her do that. She ripped open the envelope and pulled out a purple journal with a cartoon figure of a cherub on the front. Talk to Me, the title said.
Cassie opened it and saw her mother’s handwriting. A moment later, she cried out in pain.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I’m cried out. My eyes are as red as a clown’s nose and it feels like there’s a sixth-grade drum class inside my head. It happened today. Cassie is like me. We stopped off at McDonald’s and we both had Happy Meals—her because it’s the right size for a six-year-old, and me because I was hoping the name might infuse a little afternoon delight into me. Instead, the horror of what happened took away my appetite and I ended up throwing my meal in the trash.
Cassie looked at the chair next to her and said, “What’s wrong with your face?”
The chair was empty, there was no one there. I clung to the hope that she was talking to an imaginary friend. Many children have pretend pals. Nothing odd about that.
“It’s a man,” she told me. “His name’s Bob. He was hit by a truck over there.” She pointed out the window at the crossroad. “Bob says it was before the stoplights were up.” She dropped her hand and bit into her happy hamburger.
I leaned forward, looked at the empty chair, and said, “Go away,” grateful that no one sat near us. My choice. I hate it when I’m trying to eat and I feel other people’s emotions and sorrows. Very distracting.
“He’s gone, Mommy.”
I smiled at Cassie because she was smiling at me, apparently not disturbed. I didn’t want her to see how upset I was. But I had to say something.
“Let’s not tell Daddy about this, okay?”
Her smile went away and I wanted to cry. For me, for her, for Roger. He’s a good man, he just doesn’t understand. I should have told him before we were married what I was like. I thought he loved me enough that the truth wouldn’t matter, but I was wrong.
I embarrass him. When he found out that I can sense what other people feel, he turned on me. I knew it because I felt it. He knew I knew and he didn’t care.
I wanted to divorce him, but he refused because I was pregnant. “What will people think?” he asked.
Since then, he’s barely talked to me and he doesn’t say much to Cassie. I hate him. I love him.
I hope Cassie outgrows this, I truly, truly do.
Excerpt from Julie Taylor’s Journal, Undated.
After the bus dropped her off, Erin wished Cassie was greeting her instead of Tricia. Tricia smiled just like the reporter who hunted her down at the foster home before her dad came for her. The reporter pretended to care about her. Instead she put her face on the TV news, telling everyone she was a “poor girl” because her mom was a drug addict.
Tricia didn’t ask about her mom, but she wanted to read to her and other stupid stuff. Erin wasn’t a baby. She could read her own books.
Today Erin asked Tricia about Cassie. Tricia’s smile got tight and she said Cassie wasn’t there. Refusing Tricia’s offer of help with her homework, she lugged her backpack up to the bedroom that she hated. White and yellow and fluffy, like a newborn duck. And she wasn’t a white and fluffy girl. She—
The phone rang. Her mom? Erin sprang for it, her backpack tumbling to the floor. She grabbed the receiver before it rang a second time. The first thing she heard was a click, like someone else in the house picked up the phone. Erin hoped it was Tricia.
“Vanessa.” It was her dad’s voice. Crud. He sounded like the Grinch. “I know it’s you. I’m not letting you talk to Erin.”
“You’re hateful.” A sob wobbled in her mom’s voice.
Erin cringed. She wanted to help her mom but couldn’t say anything or her dad would hang up and maybe come to her room and take her phone away.
“I just want to talk to Erin. Is that so horrible, a mother wanting to talk to her daughter?”
“You need help, Van. You fucked up your life and did your best to fuck up Erin’s. Stay away from her. She’s starting to heal and the last person she needs is you.”
“Don’t do this. Luke...I need Erin. I have to see her.”
“Pass a drug test and I’ll consider it.”
“Bastard.”
“You’re still using. You think I can’t tell?”
“Without Erin, it’s like I’m walking around with a big hole inside me. I have to fill it up with something. If you let me see her, I’ll be better. I promise. Please, Luke, I miss her so.”
Erin smashed her hand over her mouth to hold back out a sob.
“You’re a piece of work,” her dad said. “I’ll do one thing for you. Check yourself into rehab again and I’ll pay the bill. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for Erin.”
“I hate you!” Her mom’s voice rose to a screech that made Erin scrunch up her face to hold back whimpers. “If you don’t let me talk to Erin, I’ll kill myself. It will be all your fault.”
“It’s always someone else’s fault with you. I don’t know how you got the new number, but if you call again I’ll report you. Goodbye.”
“Don’t you hang up on me! I’m going to kill myself. I mean it!”
The phone clicked.
“Luke? Luke?” Her mom screamed into the phone. “I hate you, I hate you. When I’m dead, you’ll be sorry for everything.”
Another click and Erin knew she was all alone again. She hung up the phone and sat on her lacy white bedspread. The tears started slowly, her sobs soundless. Then they came faster and wetter. Blubbering noises choked out of her throat. She tried to choke them back. If her dad heard her, he’d know why. He’d be mad at her for listening, and he’d be mad at her mom for making her cry.
Today the girls at school had been nice to her. She’d been happy for the first time since her eight-year birthday party when her mom sang a birthday song just for her. She’d smiled all the way home on the bus, eager to tell Cassie about her day. Because Cassie had talked to Diana at the mall, they all liked her.
She didn’t care if they liked her because her dad knew famous people. She was just glad they wanted to talk to her and didn’t treat her like she was invisible.
But everything fell apart when Tricia greeted her at the door instead of Cassie. Now Tricia didn’t care about Diana and the other girls. Now her mom was going to kill herself.
If she hadn’t called 911 because she was afraid Vanessa was dying, this would never have happened. It was all her fault.
***
The sobs coming from the little girl’s room made Isabel cringe. Why was Erin so wretched? She had everything. A rich daddy and a pretty mommy. So what if her father was hard-hearted and her mother a junkie? That made her interesting. Some day she could sell their story for a million dollars and everyone would want to interview her.
She’d be the “it” girl. Isabel could already see that she’d be beautiful. She could be in a movie, whether she could act or not. Paris Hilton would be old enough to play her mother. They’d be two of a kind. Known fo
r being rich and famous and nothing else.
Once upon a time, Isabel had been young and beautiful. Boys desired her, but she saved herself for the prince who would love and cherish her forever. The richest man in Bliss. Thomas took her as his wife and cocooned her in his money and his prominence. Everyone had looked up to her. While her former friends danced and drank and dated and struggled, she’d sat in her big house with her prince who hardly said a word to her.
Erin sobbed louder. Isabel put her hands over her ears. She hated that noise. This was her home. If anyone cried, it should be her. She was dead. The girl was alive.
Me, me, me! she wanted to shout, but she didn’t because the girl would hear her and cry louder.
Really, someone should do something about this.
With an inward roar, she flew up to the studio in the tower, shooting up through the floor, landing smack dab behind Luke.
“You’re her damn manager,” he was saying on the phone. “She’s threatening to kill herself. Manage her out of it. Get her into a rehab clinic. I’ll pay, just do it.”
He listened, his back muscles bunching. “While she was making you money, you sang a different tune.”
Another pause.
Isabel held herself still. She knew what this was about. Erin’s mother, the junkie in California. That’s who made Erin cry.
Isabel’s thoughts swirled like fallen leaves in a storm. Vanessa Desidero doesn’t deserve to be a mother. She should be dead. Not me.
“You do that. Let me know what happens.” Luke’s voice snapped out, hard and sharp.
Isabel took a cowering step back. When she interrupted Thomas as he read his business papers at night, he spoke to her like this. As if he didn’t like her much. As if she wasn’t worthy to be his wife.
Realizing what she was doing, she stopped backing up and floated a foot off the floor. Her cowering days were over.
“No wonder your ex-wife hates you,” she screeched.
He wheeled around. Shoving the phone into his pocket, he speared a look of irritation at her.
“Get out.”
“This is my home, Mister Big Spender California Songwriter.” She supposed she should tell him about Erin crying, but then Erin would cry more and Isabel didn’t like listening to her sobs.
“It’s a house,” Luke said, “not a home. This place has as much heart as an ice castle.”
She felt herself balloon up, growing bigger and bigger. If he kept saying things like this, something was going to happen. Something big. Something loud. Something—
“From all I’ve heard, you were useless while you were alive, and death hasn’t changed that.”
She screamed, the sound bouncing off the studio walls.
He stepped back, looking at her as if she were a bug in his coffee.
The same way Thomas used to look at her.
“You don’t have a fraction of the talent Elvis had,” she shouted.
He grabbed his guitar. “Elvis is dead.”
“Or Frank Sinatra.”
“Dead. They’re all dead.” He looped the strap around his neck and wrapped his long fingers around the guitar’s neck. “Elvis, Frank, Janis, Judy, Ray. They’re dead just like you are. Why don’t you get out of my house and go find them?”
“This is my home.” How many times did she have to tell him?
He played a chord that hurt her ears. With a smile, he looked at her and hit more chords, the harsh sounds of knife thrusts that sliced straight through her soul.
She screeched and swept upward and outward, propelled like a rocket through the wall, so fast the last chord still vibrated inside her ears.
Outside! She was outside!
Oh. My. God.
She looked down and saw she floated like an angel. If she’d possessed a heart, it would have been beating ten times too fast. Below her the lake she’d peered at for so many years was showing its moody side, dark and rumbling. The peak color season was past, only a few brown and yellow leaves remaining on the trees and bushes, clinging to life.
And above...? She twisted her head, easy to do, her neck turning 190 degrees. Above her, dark clouds hovered. She felt their draw. They wanted to pull her into their black depths, as if she was a pin and they were magnets.
Her soul trembled. No, she wasn’t going! Not now, maybe not ever.
She wrenched her gaze away from the clouds, her head swiveling forward. She focused, pulling herself in, feeling her soul strengthen. The danger of disappearing over for now.
But it could happen again. She had to get out of here.
Her arms at her sides, she flew straight toward the other tower. Though it was an empty shell, the walls would hide her from the clouds, stop her from flying up into them.
Head first, she hurtled into the tower and somersaulted to a halt. Hovering in the air, she looked down...at a floor. A bed. An oak cabinet, chest and chair. A container in the corner that appeared to be an old-fashioned commode.
Thick dust layered every surface. She guessed if she were alive, the place would smell musty. Her eyes would water and her nose would run, turning an ugly red.
The door was closed.
She flew to it, then stopped. Of course she could pass through it...but she wanted to see what was on the other side first. She was still shaken after her wingless flight and not in the mood for more surprises.
Concentrating, she poured strength into her hands. When her fingers tingled, becoming solid, she wrapped them around the door handle and pulled. It creaked open. Outside was a landing and a stairway, just like the other tower.
She floated down the stairs. At the end of the stairway, instead of an open doorway, she saw a rectangular piece of wood on the wall.
She wondered what was behind it.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Kurt stopped Cassie on the sidewalk outside the Main Street diner. “Are you watching the game tonight?”
“Excuse me?”
His eyes crinkled nicely. “Monday Night Football.”
“Uh...high school?”
He laughed, the crinkles deepening to laugh lines. “Pro, on TV. Half the town gets together and watches at Archie’s Tavern during football season. Besides deer hunting, there isn’t much else to do in Bliss this time of year.”
A gust of wind made her grip the boxed piece of apple pie against her chest. She shivered. Soon it would be time for gloves and a hat. Hopefully, Isabel would be gone by then, and so would she. Another gust made her grit her teeth to keep them from chattering. Whoever called Chicago the Windy City never visited Bliss, Wisconsin.
“It sounds lovely, but I’ll pass.”
“Not a football fan?” One side of his mouth curved up. “Neither am I.”
“Then why do you go?”
“Fellowship, beer and peanuts.” He grinned, giving her the full wattage of his charm. “And for something to do on a Monday night. A cheesehead’s night out.”
“There’s no cheese on my head.” She gave a little laugh, surprising herself. Since she’d pulled up to Luke’s house such a short time ago, her life revolved around Luke and Erin and Isabel.
And now her mother’s journal.
Talking about something else, she felt lighter. Her cells, soggy with sadness, perked up a bit. She could almost hear her mother whisper in her ear, telling her not to mourn her death but to celebrate her own life.
“Come on.” He waggled his eyebrows. “It’ll do you good to have some company.”
She twisted her gaze toward the street, watching the thin stream of traffic. A block away, cars turned into the parking lot of Archie’s Tavern. Light from the streetlamp and the tavern spilled over two different groups walking to the front entryway. She heard people greeting one another. Like an updated Courier & Ives scene, small town at its best.
Her belly lurched. This had been her dream when she was a child. A part of her must still cherish that dream, because she yearned to be a part of this. Her whole life she’d stood on the outside, watching o
ther people laugh and socialize. Why not join them for one night?
They knew what she was and so far no one crossed the street when they saw her walking toward them. No one pulled out a silver cross and held it up to her. No one left the diner with their food uneaten when she entered, making her feel like a pariah. As if a sign painted on her forehead said WITCH.
“Sure. Okay, I’ll go.” Even if the townspeople of Bliss did any of those things, right now she didn’t give a damn. She’d spent the last couple hours grieving afresh for her mother. The journal’s revelations had consumed her. She hadn’t thought of Luke and what they’d done more than once every five minutes. And when she did, it didn’t bother her much.
They were adults and had sex. Big deal, so what, who cared? No one. Least of all, each other.
Kurt circled his arm around her shoulder and drew her toward the tavern.
“Wait.” She held up her boxed pie. “My dessert.”
He winked. “I’ll ask Archie for two forks and share it with you.”
The word “incorrigible” came to mind. So did “opposite of Luke.”
Exactly what she needed.
Inside the tavern, a few people looked at her oddly. She smiled and held her head up high. Never again would she try to blend into the wall as her mother had done. In the last few pages of the journal, her mother wrote: I never get premonitions about myself. But last night I dreamed I died in a car accident going to the dry cleaners. I remember feeling serene for once in my life. A white light came and was filled with such love... I can’t explain it, but it was the most wonderful feeling.
The entry was dated the day before her mother’s death.
She’d died driving to the dry cleaners.
“Care for a drink?” Kurt interrupted her thoughts, steering her to an empty square table where they could see two of the four big screen TVs angled from the ceiling.
Grief settled in her throat like a ball of Silly Putty, she took a chair. The stools at the bar were filled with what she guessed were the regulars, many of them wearing Green Bay Packer green and gold.