Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story

by Glover, Sarah M.

  “Andrew, what’s really wrong?”

  He played a while longer, the same phrase over and over. “You’re not going up there alone. No way.”

  “You promised me a holiday. Why don’t you come?”

  “I believe that might already have been decided. Zoey is running around like a madwoman downstairs arranging the ‘Nick and Nora road trip’ for six, as she calls it. She’s even rung your friends—Dwayne and the lot—claims we need a medium. Christ. Only you would have a business card for a stoner spiritualist on your icebox. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that I distinctly put my foot down on driving up in that van of theirs.”

  She laughed, but he rolled his eyes and strummed a loud chord in response, faking a growl. Then his face grew serious.

  “There’s something wrong with this whole thing, Emily. I can’t describe it, but I feel it. In my gut. Something we’ve overlooked. Something dangerous. It’s there on the edges, but I just can’t grasp it.”

  “Andrew, nothing is going to happen to me or to you. As long as we’re together, we’ll be safe. Ghosts can’t hurt us. Only people.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Do you know what it would do to me if anything ever happened to you? I just found you.”

  “I’m not walking away from this. I need to know.”

  Andrew stared at her, unable to respond. Then his hand reached out and cupped her face, his eyes tender and determined all at once. “I love you. But I could kill you sometimes.”

  He drew closer and held her face more intently, then kissed her, again and again.

  The room darkened around them as the night began.

  21

  * * *

  LATER THAT WEEK BEFORE their planned trip to Mendocino, Andrew found himself wandering the streets of Pacific Heights alone. Bracing winds whipped along the wide avenues, avenues that in the vivid afternoon sun seemed to rise and fall like rollercoaster tracks under his feet. Narrower streets shot down from the peaks above and dropped their way clear down to the bay. Mansions clung to the hills, some adorned with turrets, gables, and sweeping granite steps, while others fronted modern slabs of concrete and glass. The area reminded him of a grander version of his neighborhood in London, where everything seemed tighter, flatter, and held together in an accepted order.

  As the wind kicked up he leaned against a wrought iron fence to shield himself from the gusts and glanced at the slip of paper in his hand which Emily had given him. She had slid it across the table to him at breakfast that morning with an expectant look in her eyes.

  “What’s this?” he had asked her with a quizzical smile.

  “I have my last final this afternoon. It’s a graduation gift. You should be happy that I took the effort away from having you choose.”

  “It’s an address. You want me to buy you a house?”

  She threw him a look. He’d forgotten that she had little money, while she knew very well that he did. “It’s where your mother is staying. You need to talk with her. She loves you. Please.”

  “Emily—I—I don’t know. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “Start with I’m sorry—it usually works wonders.”

  She walked around to his side of the table, kneeled down in front of him, and kissed him. He couldn’t deny her, especially when she kissed him so, or when she drew away and looked at him with such earnestness in her eyes. Eyes that were underscored with dark circles that he knew had little to do with the last of the finals she was taking in a few hours. She’d had nightmares last night, awful ones from the sound of it. She clearly didn’t want to talk about them, and he wouldn’t have been concerned if this was only the first time, but it was the third nighttime horror in as many days. In the middle of the night she would wake and bolt upright, gasping for air. He would struggle to hold her, to find her frozen lips and kiss them, whisper songs to her, anything to drive the fears away—fear of ghosts, fear of death, fear of losing each other. Whatever they were, she wouldn’t speak of them. When he questioned her in the daylight, she would wave her hand dismissively as though they were long forgotten and return to her enthusiastic detective self. It was driving him mad.

  But what could he do? He had promised her he would go on this ridiculous road trip to seek out more ghosts, ones who clearly didn’t have her best interests at heart. And while he still felt an inexplicable need to help Nick, it wasn’t strong enough to risk her life in the process.

  When he reached the grand Victorian, he looked up and took a deep breath. He wished he could confide all of this to his mother, but he feared how she would perceive it, given her supernatural leanings. She had always believed in such things, and as a child he had been taken to countless graveyards and haunted inns about the country. He had a difficult time reconciling this with her profession as a barrister; she seemed so level-headed and wise. If he told her she would fret, or worse yet, want to come along. No, it was better to deal with one clusterfuck at a time.

  The etched glass doors of the bed and breakfast opened to reveal a chintz-laden parlor that led to an ornately carved staircase. The entryway was empty, so he followed the gilt framed direction signs up the stairs to suite five. The room was at the end of the hall. He only had to knock once.

  His mother stood there, the epitome of style in a black skirt, silk blouse, and endless pearls. She didn’t notice his beat up jeans and leather jacket. She looked only at his face, and a moment later her composure dissolved.

  “Andrew! What happened to you?”

  He had forgotten about his bruises and cuts. He could see the logical and ghastly conclusion she must be coming to, and he quickly replied, “Some drunken frat boys—I’m fine. The hand’s been better, though…” He held up his bandaged fist with a shrug, like a child hoping for sympathy.

  The ploy had its desired effect, and with fluttering hands she ushered him into a seat in her small sitting room. A tea set was laid out, scenting the air with bergamot.

  “Sorry, I already had mine,” he said quietly.

  “Since when has that stopped you before? No, you sit down and have a cup of tea. There’s coffee there as well. It’ll make you feel better. Are you sure you’re not hurt? Oh, Andrew…”

  He sat down and let her pour while she eyed him as though he might keel over into the china at any moment. He could tell she was thankful for his presence, but an air of nervousness hovered around them as if they had to get used to their bodies being in the same room with each other. As if all the changes and revelations had to find a place to sit, as well.

  He plowed on, not wanting to delay. “I said some horrible things, Mum. I was angry, but that doesn’t excuse my behavior. I love you. I know you love me, I do—and I want to listen now if you’re willing to talk.”

  He paused, but before he could say another word, she placed her hand tenderly over his and patted his fingers a few times before she tightened her hold. “No, first…first I would like you to tell me about Emily.”

  “What do you want to know?” he asked. He was still defensive of her, and his tone came across as such. If this was going to descend into another round of judgments, he would be gone.

  “What you would have liked to have told me if I had been willing to listen.”

  So he told her everything about Emily, everything that he could share. He laid bare all his anxiety regarding the future and his fear that when they returned to the road he would lose her. Claudia poured him another cup of tea and sat back. He waited, hoping for guidance.

  She stared at him over the rim of her cup and answered his thoughts. “I’m the last person to ask for help, you must know that. I’ve made a mess of a great deal of my life, and it has taken me a long time to see that.” She went to sip her tea but frowned at the cup as though it had become sour and placed it down on the saucer. What she said next surprised him.

  “I had another dream the other night. The same one I had in Boston—about the ocean. You were terribly hurt—bleeding.” The hair on the back of his neck r
ose. He remembered the images that had rushed through his head when he found the chest in the passageway: the cliffs, the hotel, the screaming. “What did that man mean the other night about Emily? About someone wanting her dead?”

  “It’s bullshit, Mum.”

  “No it isn’t, Andrew. Something is obviously bothering you. Tell me.”

  And so with great reluctance, he explained to her everything they had learned from the ring and the letters and where they were heading off to on Friday morning.

  “That’s only two days away.”

  “I know, but part of me wishes it was yesterday—just so we could put this behind us.” More than anything, he wanted to end this now. Burn the letters, scatter the ashes, and destroy it all. But he knew he couldn’t. No matter how much he wanted it over with, Emily and he could not run from this. It would find them. Because he knew he had seen it all before.

  This was his secret—the dreadful secret he could not tell his mum; he couldn’t even tell Emily. He was afraid they would think he was losing his mind again. Every detail of this chaos and every step they took seemed eerily familiar, as if he had lived this nightmare over and over. He felt like he was stuck in an endless loop—helpless to change the outcome—lifetime after lifetime after lifetime.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” he said, pushing away his fears. “After this weekend we’ll have our answers.”

  “The trip sounds dangerous, Andrew.”

  He couldn’t argue with her. Even Zoey had insisted they invite Dwayne and his fellow stoners to dinner tonight to go over the details of the séance. But what help they could provide seemed tenuous at best.

  “Tell me about Neil,” he asked brusquely, sick of discussing the bloody mystery.

  Taken aback, she placed her hands in her lap, smoothing out the line of her skirt. Always so composed, she transformed before his eyes into a teenager again, gawky and shy.

  “I met Neil during his last year at university. It was at a pub in London. He was there for a band—he was always with a band—it was in his nature.” She smiled wistfully, as though looking through pages of an old photo album, though her body remained tense. “I loved him the first moment I saw him. I think you may know how that feels. I’m sorry if these words are hard for you to hear. Love can exist in so many different ways. I know you. I know how passionate you are, how driven, how all-consuming love is to you. It was the same for Neil and me. It’s just that we, we weren’t as brave, you see.

  “We were inseparable in those months after we met. He was finishing his final year. Everyone expected him to follow the sensible route. He had so little money, as little as I did. It only made sense that he would pursue a professional future—doctor, barrister…But his true passion, what he loved more than anything, was music. His family’s expectations were quite different, as you can imagine. He was never close to them—although he was thankful they had adopted him—but he just felt he was too different, I suppose. So it was me who convinced him to chase his dreams. To rebel.”

  She took a long breath and looked out into nothing, then back at him.

  “I found out I was pregnant with you a month before the end of classes. I cannot begin to explain to you the joy—from the very beginning, Andrew—the pure joy of knowing you would be in this world. Please know that.”

  He sat very still, knowing what her next words would be before she even spoke them. Yet his heart hammered in his chest as though it was running to reach them.

  “So I ended it. I knew what he wanted, and what his dreams were. I couldn’t stand in his way.”

  “Did he know? Did Neil ever know?”

  “I did the right thing.”

  “Mum, did Neil ever know about me?”

  His pulse beat so hard he felt it in his fists.

  “Yes.”

  The finality of the word stole away his breath. His hope, a fragile, fledgling thing, died. He was so sure she would say no.

  “I know you would like my past to have been some sort of fairy tale. And I wanted that too, Lord did I want it. We were both so young—we had all our lives ahead of us. It would be wonderful to think everything we wanted was possible, because it did seem like that, we were so caught up in each other. Everything mattered, we were going to change the world. But when I told Neil I was pregnant, I knew in an instant by the look in his eyes what he would say before he said it. That he would pay to have it taken care of, that I didn’t have to worry. And for the first time I saw what he wanted the most in life, what would always come first for him, what had to come first for him. And it wasn’t me.

  “I couldn’t hate him for it, although I did for a while. It was the hardest time. We barely spoke. He tried to fight for us, or how he wanted us to be, but I was too proud. He never imagined that I would consider keeping the baby. I don’t think it entered his mind. So I told him that the baby was gone, and that he should be as well. In the end, we fell apart. He left for the States without even a goodbye. Nothing.”

  Andrew tried to concentrate on her words, but the room seemed to be spinning around him. She went on tonelessly.

  “A few weeks later I went to a party with a friend. I swore that I heard the host say a St. John was there. For one precious moment I hoped against hope that Neil had come back, that he couldn’t live without me after all. But it wasn’t a St. John. It was a man who just happened to be named John, a man who also had an amazing capacity to love in his own way. Someone who wanted to stay. And it was for the best. Your father adored you, and Neil, well, he went on to achieve everything he ever wanted.”

  “But did Neil ever know how you felt about…what you wanted?”

  “I couldn’t do that to him. Oh, Andrew. Regardless of everything else, he was so poor. You can’t understand what that’s like. The family he lived with could barely feed themselves. I had nothing to offer. I would have only been a burden to him. If he had known about you, he might have stayed and given it all up, and I knew he would come to regret it. Regret me. And—”

  “Regret me.”

  Claudia’s beautiful face fell. “He never looked back. It was for the best.”

  “Did you? Did you look back?”

  “Your father was a dear man who loved me more than I deserved. He married me in spite of everything, and we had a fine life together—and he loved you without reserve. It’s all over between Lainey and me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Stop. Why do you call him that? His name is Neil.”

  “It was his nickname—or my nickname for him. It was a family name, he didn’t much care for Claudia either. He always called me C.C.” She smiled sadly.

  “So what happens now?”

  “Now? I’m done telling you what to do, Andrew. I love you, but you’re old enough to make your own decisions. I can tell you that my decisions brought me happiness because they brought me you—and your father. Please know I did love him in the best way I knew how.”

  “But what about Neil?”

  Claudia looked lost, caught somewhere between confusion and apprehension. He took her hands in his. “Thank you. I know this was difficult.”

  “It’s too late for Lainey and me, Andrew. Our time is passed.”

  “Do you want it to be?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He stood up to leave and made it to the door before he turned. “Mum, we’re playing tonight at the Elbo Room. It’s a small club over on Valencia. It’s for Emily—she’s graduating and we wanted to surprise her. She thinks it’s just dinner—but I would really love for you to be there.”

  “Oh, Andrew, thank you. Of course I’ll be there.”

  “Nine o’clock, then?”

  She nodded.

  He wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to do it, but he knew where he had to go next. He was tired of fate fucking with him.

  Andrew paced outside Neil’s home for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t know how to begin; this was turning out to be much harder than he had e
xpected. All he wanted to do was say his piece and be gone, short and to the point. That was it. In frustration, he sat down on the stone steps and tried to take a few deep breaths, placing his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He heard soft footfalls approach and glanced up into the sunshine.

  Neil’s dark blue suit set off the blond-gray of his hair, and sympathy lined his tired face. “How’s your hand?”

  “It’s been better. How’s the chin?”

  Neil rubbed it thoughtfully. “No wonder you can play the way you do.” Andrew laughed, though he didn’t want to. “Want to take a walk?” Neil offered, as though encouraged by the sound. “I was going to grab a bite.”

  A few blocks down the street they found a taqueria where one could order at the window and sit outside at tables covered by the shade of umbrellas. Outside was good, Andrew reckoned. There would be less chance of a fight with witnesses, and he wouldn’t appear the bundle of nerves he was at the moment.

  “It must be very hard for you right now,” Neil said as they sat down. Andrew couldn’t read his eyes; they both wore sunglasses, the afternoon rays blazing down on them.

  “I could say the same for you. How much do you…know?”

  “Enough, or enough after you came to see me. That kind of clinched the deal. I knew the exact date she sent me away, I found out your birthday. The math was, as they say, elementary.”

  “So then—you sought us out knowing who I was?”

  “No, not then. I had my hunches, but I wanted to see you because of what others had said about your music. I couldn’t believe anyone could be that good. But you were, and you were also her son—one look at you told me that. You have her face, her mouth. And so many of her mannerisms.”