“Thanks,” he said instead and gave him a smile in farewell.
Once he was back in his car he tore the envelope open and pulled out a sheaf of paper. He had to turn on the car’s internal light to take a better look, but even that was not enough to allow him to read the text on the photocopies of the clippings. It would have to wait until he reached Melinda’s house to take a proper look at them. The traffic had already started to thin out, and it should not take him too long to reach his destination.
Chapter Thirty-One
Melinda still didn’t really know what she was going to say when she stopped the car outside Tom Lowe’s house. Jez had insisted on giving her directions at every turn and intersection along the way, even though she had a good idea of where she was going. She almost reached the point where she wanted to tell him to leave the car and that she would see him when she got there. Clearly there had been no point in her even writing the address down.
Unlike the car-repair shop, this home was well cared for. The lawn looked like it had been recently mown, even though the air was chilly and it felt as if they were closer to winter than summer. A child’s tricycle lay tipped on its side outside the house as if its rider had abandoned it in a hurry to go inside when called in for supper. No doubt it would be collected and stored before the evening was over, ready for its owner to use the following day.
“I guess this is it,” she said and slid out of the car.
The porch light came on as she walked along the path to the house, and a moment later the drapes twitched as someone looked out. She had a feeling that it was Tom, but the movement had been too quick for her to be sure. The front door opened before she even had the chance to ring the bell.
“What do you want?” Tom asked. “I thought we had already said everything that needed to be said.”
“So did I,” she said. “But since your father won’t leave me alone, I decided that I had better give it one last shot. He says he’s sorry.”
“Sorry? What is he sorry for? Screwing up my life?”
“Everything, I think, but he says he wants to help put things right.”
“Help? How can he help? You’ve seen the mess that he’s left me in. This isn’t something that can be fixed just by saying sorry.”
“He says that he has a solution.”
“Is he here? Please don’t tell me he’s here.”
Melinda couldn’t lie to the man. His father’s ghost was standing next to her, jabbering in her ear so much that she was having trouble concentrating on saying what needed to be said to the younger man.
“I’m not going to get rid of him until he’s had the chance to say his piece,” Melinda said. “Believe me, I want this to be done just as much as you do.”
“Then you’d better come in,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
His wife was sitting in the living room, the television turned down low. The room was scattered with toys, and the sound of children filtered through the ceiling from upstairs.
“This is my wife, Lauren,” he said. “And this is Melinda.”
Lauren looked her up and down. “You don’t look like a crazy woman,” she said.
“Thanks, I think,” Melinda said. “Though I’m not sure what a crazy woman is supposed to look like.”
She didn’t receive a response.
“So,” Tom said once they were all sitting down. “What’s this big plan that my dad’s supposed to have come up with?”
Clearly she was still fighting a battle to convince him that his father’s ghost really was haunting her. At the end of the day she didn’t need him to believe her—she just needed him to listen and maybe do what Jez wanted him to do. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but she had to try.
“He says that you can’t manage on your own,” she began, ignoring the grunts that they both released after she stated the obvious. “And he says he’s sorry for driving Lauren away.”
“Sounds like the list of things he’s apologizing for is growing,” Tom said. “But there’s plenty I could add if you like. Especially if he’s listening.”
That brought a grunt from Jez in return, but at least they were spared from hearing it. Clearly he wanted to put things right, but he seemed to want to do it on his own terms. He needed to take the credit for putting his son on the right path even if it had been his fault in the first place. She decided to ignore them all and just press on. It was likely to be the only way that she would be able to deal with this.
“He says that the only way he was able to keep the business going was to lean on someone else. He had someone who could do some of the work in the repair shop so he could keep on top of the paperwork. He can see now that he was wrong, that he should have spent more time showing you how to deal with the kind of stuff that comes through the doors of the business, and he should have let Lauren have a free hand on the office side.”
“It’s a bit late for sorry now, though, isn’t it? It’s too late for him to look over my shoulder and point out what I should be doing instead of pushing me to one side and taking over all the time. Maybe if he’d done that when he was alive, we would have been in a better place than we are right now.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Melinda said. “But maybe there is someone who might be able to help.”
“You’ve seen the business. You know I can’t afford to take anyone on full time. A trainee would take up more time than they would be worth for the first couple of years, and I still wouldn’t know any more than I know now. I know how to look after top-of-the-line cars, but the people who drive those aren’t likely to come to a back-street repair shop like mine.”
“Your dad said there’s someone who used to work for him. Someone called Dan?”
“He retired,” Tom said.
“Your dad said he retired so that he could look after his wife, but she died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tom said, clearly suddenly shaken by the news. His voice dropped a little. “I had no idea.”
“Well, your dad thinks he might be willing to come in a few hours each day or maybe a couple of days a week to help you out. He thinks he could be a really good teacher.”
The couple looked at each other as they took in the suggestion. Melinda was keeping her fingers crossed, hoping that they would at least agree to think about it. That might be all it took.
“He’s a nice guy,” Tom said. “People might come back if they knew he was working there again. They trust him, and he knows a lot of people.”
It was clear that Lauren agreed. Maybe she felt that she needed an interest outside of the house too; maybe it would help them both in some way. They were soon in deep conversation, discussing the possibilities that it might open up for them, even the idea that they might be able to offer a few hours’ work a week to a youngster to keep the place looking tidy. It would be hard work to turn it around, but in the long term they both accepted that it would be worth it, especially if they pulled together. Even if Dan couldn’t commit to more than a couple of hours a day, he could at least help Tom with the stuff that he hadn’t come across before.
“I guess I’ve done everything I came for,” Melinda said when they finally paused for breath. There was nothing else that she could say or do that would make any difference, and yet Jez was still there, sitting next to her.
As she said goodbye to Tom and his wife she saw Jez was now standing beside her car. By the time she reached it, the front door of the house had been closed behind her, the tricycle taken inside. Lights were on in all of the houses on the street, but there was not another soul standing outside watching them.
“I guess that’s it,” Jez said with reluctance in his voice.
“You know what to do?” Melinda asked.
“I’ve seen enough folks do this since my life ended,” he said. “More than once I’ve been tempted to follow them, but I’ve a
lways known that there would be no coming back once I’d taken that step. I’d almost given up hope of finding someone who could see me and be able or willing to help. I guess I just got lucky in the end.”
“I’m glad that you’re going to be able to pass over with no regrets,” she said as a pinprick of light started to form.
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of regrets,” he said. “But there’s nothing I can do about any of the others. Not in this place, at least. Maybe on the other side I’ll get the chance to say sorry to the other people I let down.”
The pinprick of light had grown until the street was filled with the brightest glow.
“Thank you” was the last thing that Jez said as he stepped into it. The light winked out almost instantly, and night returned. He was gone, and Melinda felt a sense of relief.
Chapter Thirty-Two
By the time she reached home again, she half expected to find Aiden already in bed but somehow she wasn’t that surprised to find him downstairs squashed on the couch between Jim and Ned. The two men each had a bottle of beer, while Aiden had a mug of milk. He was mimicking the others, raising it to his lips every time one of the others did. It was like watching synchronized drinking. They weren’t setting a very good example, but she couldn’t help but find it funny.
“Looks like you guys are comfortable,” she suggested. Jim started to make apologies for Aiden not being in bed, for the dishes not having been done, for just about anything she might have cause to complain about. Melinda loved to see him squirm for just a moment, but that was all.
“It’s been a long day,” Aiden said, sending them all into fits of laughter. It was amazing how much he picked up when they didn’t even think he was listening.
“Come on, you,” Jim said, picking Aiden up in his arms. “We were just waiting until Mommy came home before we headed up.” He turned to Melinda. “Ned has something he wants to talk to you about, so we’ll leave you to it.”
He handed Melinda his beer and held Aiden close enough for him to give her a kiss good night, then they made their way upstairs to the sound of giggles. It wasn’t going to be easy to settle Aiden down now, but it was a small price to pay for seeing him happy.
“I’ve got these for you,” Ned said and handed her the envelope. She dropped into the chair and pulled out the sheets of paper.
“These from your friend Terri?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. I’m surprised that there wasn’t more, but it was all she could find.”
Melinda read the pages. They told the tragic tale of a child who had gone missing and never been found.
“This was more than thirty years ago,” she said, spotting the dates handwritten at the top of each page. “Much longer ago than we thought. Was she ever found, or did they just stop looking for her?”
Ned shook his head. “That’s all Terri gave me, and I haven’t been able to find out anything else about her. All the clippings are from the Chronicle, but I suspect that if it had been covered by any of the bigger papers, they would have kept a copy of that too. Local interest and all that.”
Most of the clippings included a picture of the missing girl, no doubt to try to remind people of what she looked like, just in case they might have seen her. Melinda would have recognized her from the picture without needing a second glance. One of the pictures showed her with another girl, maybe a couple of years older, who the caption said was her sister. Two little girls who looked so similar, so innocent. So this was who she was looking for.
“We need to find someone who knew them,” she said without looking up from the pictures. Alice looked so much happier in them all.
“Do you think that there’s anyone still working at the school who might have been around back then? Could Dana ask around?” Ned asked.
“Maybe,” she said but then thought that that someone would have had to have been a very young teacher at the time to still be plugging away after all those years. “So many people come and go through this town and memories are so short that it’s hard to even know who might have been around at the time.”
“Mrs. Connor at the library has been around forever. Even if she can’t remember, she might be able to point us toward someone who does.”
Mrs. Connor lived only a few houses away from Melinda and more than once had kept an eye on Aiden when he had gone to some activity at the library. Aiden liked her a lot and was always happy to be left in the old lady’s care. Melinda checked her watch and saw that it was almost eight. It was getting late but maybe not too late to give her a call. Ten minutes later she had the number of Mrs. Connor’s daughter, who had gone through the school at around that time. The librarian remembered the poor girl going missing, and she was sure that her daughter had been friendly with the older sister.
“Of course, the poor girls’ mother still lives in town,” Mrs. Connor said, as if it was of little consequence.
“She does?” Melinda said, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. “We couldn’t find anyone by the name of Fallon still living in the town.”
“Oh yes, she’s still here. Of course, she went back to her maiden name when she got divorced.”
“And the other daughter?”
“I’ve no idea, I’m afraid. She doesn’t live here anymore though.”
“What’s the mother’s name now?” Melinda asked, signaling a request for a pen to Ned, who was listening intently. He fumbled in his pocket and handed her one. She turned the envelope that had held the clippings over, ready to write down the name that Mrs. Connor was struggling to remember. They were close to finding the little girl’s sister; she could feel it.
“Johnson, Johansson, Jorgansson, something like that. You must know her. She works in the bakery opposite the library.”
“The gray-haired lady?”
“That’s the one.”
“I had no idea,” Melinda said. She knew exactly who she meant and spoke to her almost every time she went in to buy bread but had never known her name, let alone her sad history.
“I don’t think she’s working tomorrow, but I’m sure you’ll find her in the book.” She gave her the name of the street she lived on before she asked how Aiden was and how it had been so long since she had last spoken to him. When Melinda hung up she told Ned that she couldn’t believe that the answer had been under their noses all the time. A quick check in the phone book confirmed that she did indeed live on the street that Mrs. Connor had directed her toward. Anna Jorgansson.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The house was a small wooden affair on the outskirts of town. A sad-looking place that matched the features of the woman who opened the door the next morning. Melinda had barely slept that night, desperately hoping that she would be able to take another step forward in helping poor little Alice. Melinda had rehearsed their conversation over and over again, but each time it had played out differently. It was never easy to start a conversation like the one she was going to have to have with the woman, but she was surprised by the woman’s reaction when she opened the door to her.
“It’s Melinda, isn’t it?” she said. “You run the antique shop.”
“That’s right,” Melinda said, accepting the offer to come inside and have tea. She was not questioned as to why she was there. They sat in a small room that was clean and tidy but had the overwhelming feeling of being threadbare and tired.
“I’ve never been inside your shop,” the woman said. “But I’ve looked in through the window a few times. I’ve seen you in the bakery often enough.”
“My son and my husband are both fond of cake, I’m afraid,” Melinda said, as if she had to explain why she should be in there buying anything other than bread.
“This is about Alice, isn’t it,” the woman said eventually, changing the subject suddenly.
“What makes you say that?”
“Why else would you come here? I’ve heard the whispers and I
’ve seen the nudges. People seem to think that you can see ghosts. If you’ve come to see me, then I guess you must have seen Alice. I was hoping that you would never come and see me. I’ve always had the hope that she might have been taken by a couple who couldn’t have children of their own. At least that way I could pretend that she was having a good life somewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Melinda said. It was all she could think to say.
“It’s hardly your fault, now is it?” There were tears in the woman’s eyes, but she brushed them away. “I’ve been hoping for so long that she was still alive somewhere, imagining her all grown up like her sister. Having a good life.”
“What happened to Alice’s sister?”
“Chrissie moved away with her father. They couldn’t stand to live here any longer, constantly being reminded that she had lost a sister and he had lost a daughter, but I couldn’t leave my baby. I didn’t want to forget about her.”
“So you chose to stay?” It came out as an accusation, as if she had turned her back on the living child in favor of the one who was probably dead and let their father walk away.
“I only intended to stay for a while,” she said. “Give them time to get settled in the new home, then I would join them, but time dragged on. I wanted to stay for another week, another month, until time seemed to disappear. I couldn’t expect my husband to wait for me forever, but even so it came as a shock when he told me that he wanted a divorce so he could get married again. By then I knew that I couldn’t leave. I could never leave. I lost both my daughters.”
“Do you see much of Chrissie?”
The woman shook her head and took a sip of her tea. The thought was clearly painful, and Melinda didn’t want to press her too hard.
“I’ve been out to see her a few times, but we’re like strangers now. Barely exchanging more than birthday and Christmas cards. I think she hated me for a while for not wanting to go with them, for letting someone else take my place.”
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