by K. J. Emrick
Darcy pushed the END button on the handset of the wall phone and set it back in its cradle. They’d updated their home phone to this cordless phone a while back now. She had to admit, she didn’t miss the twelve-foot-long cord that always got coiled and knotted and tangled around furniture. She did worry that some trickster ghost was going to figure out how to make contact through it, though, just like a cellphone. Seriously, it had to be something about the wavelength the phone operated on, or something…
“How’s Izzy?” Jon asked from the stove, where he was stirring the spaghetti noodles.
It took Darcy a moment to remember what he was asking about. He’d interrupted her thoughts about ghosts and phones and microwave radiation and now she had to switch gears back to the concerns of the living. “Oh, she’s fine. I offered to have her come over for dinner, but I don’t think she’s going to.”
“Good. That will give us some time to talk to Zane about this connection you think he has with Cha Cha.”
“Not just with Cha Cha. I think, maybe, it might be with all animals.”
After this morning, seeing Zane talking back and forth with Cha Cha, she’d remembered little incidents that had just seemed cute when they’d happened, but now seemed like so much more. Like Zane arguing with a chipmunk in the park. The way he would stare with wide-eyed wonder at the birds outside the window of his room. She was looking at memories of him and Cha Cha differently now, too. Looking back, she didn’t know how she’d missed it.
The rest of the day had dragged on. Jon had gone back to work, and Darcy had waited to close up her shop early in the afternoon when she was sure no other customers were going to be coming in. She’d read through her aunt’s journals whenever she had a moment, but they hadn’t been any kind of help. There was nothing in there at all about the jewelry box. It was just as big a mystery now as it had been when she was a child and felt herself inextricably drawn to it. Now that it was hers once more, she felt that way again.
There were other journals here at the house that she planned on giving a thorough read, when she had the time, because she was certain there was something in one of them about that box. Something she couldn’t quite remember.
That was going to have to wait, though. Now that they were home, with Colby off doing homework and Zane playing in his room, she and Jon could talk about this new variety of crazy in their lives.
She crossed her arms over herself, lines of worry creasing her forehead. “I’m just worried about Zane.”
“Personally?” Jon said, taking out a strand of spaghetti and slurping it into his mouth to test. “I think this is great.”
Her frown settled in his direction. “Oh, do you now?”
He chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, actually I do think so. We agreed a long time ago that you would be the primary parental unit when it came to anything to do with Colby and your family gift. All the ghost stuff is a matter for you and her. I’m fine with that. I respect that. But now, here comes a brand-new variation on the gift, something no one in your family has ever seen, and you don’t know anything more about it than I do. This can be a father-son thing. We’ll learn about it together, me and him, and I think it will be great. He’ll be more comfortable talking to his old man about it. You’ll see.”
“What, he’ll be more comfortable because you two are both boys?”
“Exactly my point.”
Her scowl eased up, because she saw how excited he was to think this could be a male bonding opportunity for him to share with Zane. She knew he felt left out whenever Darcy would coach Colby in how to do spirit communications, or when they started talking about some ghost that they saw walking down the streets of Misty Hollow like they had this past summer. It might not have been fair of her to exclude him completely from those moments in their daughter’s life but at the same time, he didn’t know anything about that stuff. There was nothing he could do for Colby in those instances.
But this was something new for both of them. They were all starting from square one, and Jon had just as much right to try guiding their son as she did.
“So you really think you can do this?” she asked him.
“Me and Zane can figure it out together. I mean, with your help if we need it because this is still a Sweet family tradition, even if it’s never shown up in a boy before and no one in your family has ever heard of a kid talking to his dog.” He smiled as he took the pot off the stove and moved it to the sink. “So, I think this is fantastic. A dad and his boy and their dog. I mean, what is more iconic than that, right?”
“So what you’re saying,” she said, her voice teasing, “is that you think it’s your turn.”
“Exactly! I want to do my part for our extraordinary, amazing children. At least let me try.”
“For Pete’s sake, Jon. Father-son bonding stuff is… is supposed to be throwing a baseball back and forth. Teaching him how to impress girls by grunting and lifting heavy objects. Normal stuff. It’s not supposed to be spooky stuff and extrasensory abilities.”
With a little more force than he absolutely needed, he banged open a cabinet door to wrangle out the colander. “Maybe so,” he muttered, “but how often do we get to do the normal stuff in our family?”
She watched him dump the spaghetti into the plastic strainer. Steam rose everywhere as he gave the noodles a rinse. He was right, she decided. Jon had been a great father to both of their children. She couldn’t ask for a better man in her life. And, he and Zane were best friends. So why not let him try his hand at navigating what was sure to be a peculiar situation for all of them?
She brought him a spaghetti spoon, sliding her arms around him from behind, and snuggling up to his back. She waved the plastic utensil in front of his chest. “Here, take this.”
He took the spoon and leaned back into her, his body molding to hers. “Thanks,” he said, without turning around.
“You’re welcome. And, you’re right. You’ll be great at helping Zane figure out who he is and how to use this ability he’s been given.”
Now he did turn around, inside the circle of her arms, grinning like a man who had just opened the biggest present under the tree on Christmas. “Thank you. I like it when you trust me.”
“Always,” she told him.
“If Zane ever says he wants to talk about it with you instead of me, then that’s what will happen. I promise. We’ll figure this out together.”
She pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss him gently on his cheek. “Just like always.”
“Just like always,” he agreed, and held her close.
A few moments later, she cleared her throat. “Uh, Jon?”
“Yes?”
“The spaghetti…”
He swore softly and rushed to dump the pasta into a mixing bowl and rescue the sauce from scalding in the saucepan. He’d always been fairly handy in the kitchen. Darcy liked to watch him while he worked. It was soothing, to see a man working with his hands for his family. The fact that he was gorgeous even now, when there was gray in his hair and both of them were staring squarely at middle age, was a definite perk.
When the rolls came out of the oven Darcy called Colby in from the living room and went upstairs to get Zane. He was still too little for her to be comfortable taking down the safety gates from the top of the stairs, and the bottom of the stairs, and the entryway between the kitchen and the living room. Maybe next year. Or when he was twenty-five and safely rolled up in bubble wrap. For now, he couldn’t get to the stairs by himself and she liked it that way.
Dinner was delicious, and it was over before Darcy knew it. They had all been caught up with stories of Colby’s day in school and a customer who had come into the bookstore today wearing a frizzy multi-colored afro because he’d lost a bet with his friends. Zane had seen him, too, and the little boy spent the rest of the meal patting his head with his hands and saying, “big hair, big hair!”
After the dishes were put away, Colby said she still had some homework to do and headed off to he
r room. She’d turned unusually quiet just before dessert, and even turned down the two chocolate chip cookies her parents offered her. Darcy watched her head off to the stairs. Was she holding onto the railing a little tighter than she needed to? Poor girl. Those headaches were really starting to take a toll on her. Hopefully the tests at the hospital on Tuesday would tell them more. It was Friday, and they had the weekend to go yet, but if things got worse, she was going to go down to Doctor Malik’s office and demand answers.
Colby had insisted the tests had to be on Tuesday, and not tomorrow, but Darcy was beginning to think she should use the Mom card and overrule her.
Zane was still in his booster seat at the table, munching on his cookies and humming that Baby Shark song. He took a bite from the cookie in his left hand, and then the one in his right hand, and back and forth like that. Cha Cha had meandered into the kitchen through the open safety gate. Now he sat at his boy’s feet, looking up at the cookies hopefully and sweeping his short tail back and forth across the floor.
“Sorry,” Zane said around the mouthful he was chewing on. “Mommy says chocolate not good for dogs. You’re a dog. No chocolate for you.”
Cha Cha turned his head to one side, letting his ear dangle, and yipped pleadingly.
“No,” Zane said, giggling and rocking in his seat. “No way!”
Jon looked at Darcy, and she knew that look. She nodded, and motioned with her hand, telling him to go ahead and ask.
He cleared his throat and leaned forward in his seat. “What did Cha Cha say, buddy?”
Zane giggled again. “He wants trade his dog food for cookie.” He took a big, big bite of what remained of the left cookie. “Uh-uh. Nice try, doggie!”
Darcy was going to correct her son’s grammar—for “a” cookie—but she pressed her lips closed tight instead. This wasn’t the time. Right before her eyes, she was watching her son do something amazing. Besides, this was her husband’s show, just like they’d agreed.
Jon’s smile lit his eyes. “Zane, can you ask Cha Cha something for me?”
“Sure, Daddy.”
“Can you ask him to find my watch?”
“Sure I can.”
Darcy looked at Jon’s wrist. The watch wasn’t there, but that wasn’t unusual. He always took it off when he got home, just like he always took his wallet out of his pocket. What was he up to?
Zane whispered down to his puppy, “Where Daddy’s watch?”
Cha Cha twisted his head the other way, managing to convey confusion with his cute little face.
Jon began to look uncertain. Was it not working? Was Zane not able to talk to animals after all? The moment stretched and still Cha Cha didn’t move.
Darcy sat up straighter as an idea occurred to her. She knew what was wrong. “Zane, honey, ask him ‘where is’ Daddy’s watch. If you tell him ‘where daddy’s watch’ it sounds like you want him to wear the watch. The two words sound alike.”
“Oh,” her son said, his mouth forming a comical circle outlined in smeared chocolate. “Got it. Cha Cha, where, is, Daddy’s, watch?”
This time Cha Cha barked enthusiastically and jumped up to show that he knew the answer. His claws slipped on the linoleum like a cartoon character running in place until he got traction and then he practically shot across the floor to the other end of the kitchen, over by the front door where all of their shoes sat lined up in a row on the rubber mat. He snuffled into one of Jon’s wingtips and then got his jaws around something.
He came out with Jon’s stainless-steel watch.
Padding back over, head high and obviously proud of himself, Cha Cha slipped on his claws and stumbled before righting himself again. He stopped, and shook his ears, and then went right over to Zane like nothing had even happened.
Zane finished the last of his cookie and clapped. “Good dog. Give it to Daddy, okay?”
Cha Cha padded around the table and placed the watch down at Jon’s feet.
Jon picked it up and wiped off the dog slobber on the side of his pants before slipping it on his wrist. “I put it there when you were calling the kids for dinner,” he explained. “Cha Cha didn’t see me do it. Neither did Zane. How’d he know it was there, Zane?”
Zane looked down at the puppy, who returned that gaze, and even though he didn’t say anything at all Darcy felt like something had passed between the two of them. It was like a hum of electricity that tickled the back of her eyes.
Then Zane said, “He says he smelled it. Like metal and Daddy smell.”
“Did he tell you that?” Jon asked, folding his hands together on the table and nodding like he’d just proven something to himself.
Zane shrugged like it should be obvious. “Sure. Cha Cha told me. He tells me lotsa stuff.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure. I tell him lotsa things, too.”
“Oh? How do you do that?”
Zane looked confused, turning around in his booster to look at his mother, and then his father. “Told him with my eyes. How else?”
Darcy’s breath caught in her throat. With his eyes? How exactly does that work?
Jon must have been as confused as her but to his credit he didn’t show it. “That’s really interesting, buddy. Hey. Can you show me how you do that?”
“Why, Daddy? Can’t you do the eye talking?”
“No, Daddy can’t. Mommy can’t, either.”
Zane scrunched up his face, thinking really hard. “Colby?”
Jon shook his head. “Nope. Not Colby. Just you.”
That made their son sit up tall and proud in his booster. “Cool.”
Darcy laughed behind her hand. Yeah. It was kind of cool, wasn’t it?
“Buddy,” Jon urged, “can you show me how you do the eye talking?”
“Um. Sure,” he said. Twisting in his seat he looked down at Cha Cha, and the dog looked up at him. Darcy felt something pass between them again. A tickle at the back of her brain…
Then Cha Cha jumped up and came over to Darcy, sitting up on his hindquarters, one paw patting at the air. He barked once, and then again.
“He says please, Mommy,” Zane translated for her.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Please? Please what, honey?”
“Um. I said to Cha Cha if he asks please, maybe you got him a cookie?”
“Get him,” Darcy said while her head spun. “It’s, ‘get him’ a cookie.”
She bent down and picked the dog up in her arms, scratching between his oversized ears. She had come to grips with her gift years and years ago, but she’d been a teenager when she did. It had been hard on her to have those abilities suddenly crop up out of nowhere. Zane was going to learn this ability from early on. Maybe it would be easier for him. Her son could talk to animals just by thinking about what he wanted to say. He could hear Cha Cha answer. He could understand what the dog said. And maybe other animals, too.
Jon cleared his throat again. “Hey, Darcy? I think Cha Cha’s waiting for an answer.”
“Oh. Oh, right.” She’d better get a grip, she told herself. What was that she’d been saying earlier about her new normal? “Well, Cha Cha, there’s no chocolate chip cookies for dogs, even cute ones like you, but how about some leftover bacon instead?”
Cha Cha looked to Zane, and with a look Zane must have conveyed what ‘bacon’ meant because suddenly Cha Cha was squirming in Darcy’s arms and yipping and wanting bacon, bacon, bacon!
“Bam-bow-wow,” Zane said, clapping again. “Right, Cha Cha?”
The dog’s happy barking said it all.
As Darcy let Cha Cha down on the floor, she caught sight of a lithe streak of white fur jumping up on the countertop next to her. Tiptoe curled her tail around her feet as she sat there, looking from the dog to Darcy. If cats could roll their eyes, then that’s what had just happened, Darcy was sure of it.
She didn’t even bother telling Tiptoe she wasn’t supposed to be up there. The young cat knew it was against the rules, but this seemed
to be an evening to forget the rules and so Darcy let it go. Opening the fridge, she got out the container of bacon from yesterday and, because Tiptoe had decided to join them, she got out a slice of cheese as a treat for the cat. Not all of it, but maybe half would be okay.
Then she stopped as another idea popped into her head.
“Hey, Zane,” she said, “can you tell me what Tiptoe’s saying?”
Zane had to twist a little further in his seat to see the cat. The look they shared only lasted a moment. “Hey,” he told her. “Not nice!”
Even Jon looked surprised. “What did she say, buddy?”
The little boy crossed his arms. “She says dogs shoulda been heard, not seen.”
Darcy gasped. She remembered that from her dream. It was exactly what Tiptoe had said, in almost exactly the same words.
She couldn’t help it. She laughed.
Zane still had his arms crossed. “What’s so funny?”
“Sorry, honey. Sorry. You’re right, that wasn’t funny. Tiptoe agreed to share her house with Cha Cha so that was nice of her, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t look convinced. Then his face brightened. “Hey, can I feed Cha Cha bacon?”
“Sure you can, kiddo. Let Daddy help you out of your seat.”
Darcy tore off little pieces of the cheese slice to feed Tiptoe—on the floor, not the counter—while Jon and Zane gave pieces of cold bacon to a very appreciative Cha Cha. The moment would have been surreal, if it wasn’t her family. After all the things they had been through both together and separately, now she and Jon got to start a brand-new sort of adventure with their son. She would have to start a journal of her own. One to go right alongside the several Great Aunt Millie had written. This was something that had never been documented in her family. She needed to document it all for Colby and Zane’s children, and their kids after that.
Maybe when she was dead and gone and hanging around as a ghost, her children’s children would read her words and be comforted by the fact that they weren’t alone in whatever they were going through. She ate a little of the cheese herself while she thought about what that would be like.