by Brown, Tara
I undressed and climbed into bed, curling up and savoring the crisp sheets as I closed my eyes.
A little melancholy slipped in as images of lying in bed with Lucas somehow found their way into my mind. Maybe it was that the sheets were the same as the ones in the hotel. I lay on my side and stared at the other half of the bed, imagining him there. He was a ghost I had made up. A lie in my head. But after several minutes I saw him clearly.
“There was a storm of thought and passion, bordering on insanity, behind your eyes that called to me.” My eyes welled and spilled over. “I miss that.”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He was in my mind and the moment my thoughts drifted, he vanished, dissolving into air.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, remembering the last time we were alone. The last time I saw him eating, which for some bizarre reason I enjoyed. There was something sexy about his jawline and the way it flexed when he chewed. Or clenched.
If I closed my eyes, I could hear his laugh. His real one.
Other images joined that. Sex and the feel of his hands on me, him inside me. I exhaled softly, reliving it as if it were yesterday and not over a month ago.
He’d been dead for over forty days.
How was that possible?
The time had flown by and I didn’t feel any more healed or able to cope with it. I still missed everything. Every detail.
I closed my eyes and though it had been him I’d thought of last, it was her that came to me the moment I fell asleep.
I woke with a start but knew I was dreaming when Paige climbed into my bed and snuggled with me. “Remember when we said we were going to move to Mexico and live on the beach and have a tiny hut and hide out?”
“Yeah.” I smiled, rubbing my bleary eyes.
“I was serious,” she said and turned her face to mine.
“I don’t know if I was. I don’t think I believed I would ever leave.” I faced her too. “I think I imagined I would die in that house.”
“You did,” she whispered and kissed my nose.
I blinked and she was gone. The room was dark. The air was muggy.
In the moonlight I saw the pillow was still fluffed. She hadn’t come.
I still felt awful but my appetite had returned. I climbed from the bed and pulled on a robe, walking down the stairs to the kitchen. I didn’t have any soup even though Deborah left a note for me to eat it. I grabbed a cinnamon bun she had forced me to make for her the day before last. I microwaved it for twenty seconds, as she had shown me, and stood in front of the fridge eating it.
My eyes darted to the small calendar magnet on the fridge. It resembled the one I had kept in my closet as a backup for my periods. I blinked and swallowed, staring as calculations took over my thoughts. I’d had my last period July tenth. I remembered because it was the day I found out Paige died. Getting my period was that little bit extra I didn’t need.
But now it was September.
Had the stress of everything kept my period from me? I raced upstairs and grabbed my phone, checking for my flow app, but I hadn’t installed it on the new phone yet. I tapped quickly, leading myself to the app store and installing it. My heart raced and the cinnamon bun wasn’t sitting so well. I logged in and checked. August ninth was the date for my expected period, which was never late. I had a perfect thirty-day cycle. But it hadn’t come. September eighth was my next predicted period. It too hadn’t come. It was late.
I gagged, shaking my head back and forth. No. That wasn’t possible.
I checked my ovulation and lifted my hand to my mouth. I’d been mid-cycle. Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths. I added the date of conception, trying to remember when it was. I knew we’d had sex around the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of July. The flow app suggested I was seven weeks pregnant.
My mouth soured and my mind raced.
A child. Lucas’ child.
With trembling fingers, I rested my hand against my stomach and stared at it as if it wasn’t my body. I was going to have a baby. Something I’d told myself I would never have. Ever. Not in a million years. Not for all the riches in the world.
I had no idea how to be a mother.
But Paige’s words came back. The dream. She’d pointed at my belly and told me not to be afraid. But I was.
I wrestled with it all night long, reading everything I could find on the internet. Most of it was terrifying. I made the mistake of watching a live birth. That made my nausea return.
By the time Deborah got up, I was a mess. Pacing and panicking and contemplating things I didn’t really want.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she made coffee.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurted.
She stopped what she was doing and closed her eyes, taking a minute before asking the question I dreaded, “Do you know—”
“Lucas.”
“How far along?” Her tone scared me.
“Seven weeks, ish.”
“Okay.” She nodded and returned to making the coffee. “All right.”
I sat at the counter and turned on the seat warmer.
“Your diet needs to change.”
“I know. Folic acid and no unripened cheese and all that.” I waved her off. “I’m more worried about if I inherited the need to torture my kids or if I’ll be able to find something resembling love in my crusty heart.”
She started to laugh. It was one of those crazed laughs you worry about. Maniacal and ominous. She leaned against the counter.
“What’s so funny?” I dared to ask.
“Oh—” she tried to recover but couldn’t. She was stuck hooting and slapping the countertop.
I thought maybe I broke her. This was it. The end. Adding a baby to my hot-mess life was as far as Deborah was willing to go.
Finally, she slowed enough to answer, “You—you think you’re evil!” She laughed harder again. “I’ve met baby animals with more malice in them.” She trembled as tears streamed her cheeks.
“I don’t see what’s funny about it.”
“You wouldn’t.” She slapped the counter again, making me jump.
It was a minute before she wiped her face. “I needed that.” She went back to making the coffee. “My girl, you are the least evil person I’ve ever met. You’re a scaredy-cat. The moment you saw your mother, a woman who murdered your friend and father in cold blood, you ran faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.” She started the machine and turned back to me, placing a hand on mine. “You didn’t think vengeance. You didn’t try to fight her. She wanted to lure you into the fire, but she didn’t know your heart. You’re a lover, not a fighter.”
“Right,” I said, hating all those memories.
“Why don’t we get a kitten from one of the local farmers, and you can test out your loving skills on that and see if you ever feel like poking it with a—”
“What is wrong with you?” I gasped at her sentence.
“My point exactly.” She fixed her eyes on mine. “But this is serious business. A baby is no small thing. What’s your due date?”
“It’s predicting mid-April. The fifteenth or sixteenth.”
“Then we best get to work. What have you found so far?”
“I need a family doctor. A bunch of crazy tests. A multivitamin and strict diet. It suggested I should be walking a lot, keeping active.” I wrinkled my nose at that.
“Shall we start with one of your gross smoothies then?” Deborah asked as I yawned.
“Sure, thanks.”
She grabbed a cup of coffee. “Oh, you’re making it for us both. And I want extra yogurt in it.” She winked as she sauntered to the table and sat in the morning sunlight.
“I see.” I got up and started to make it, trying not to miss the mothering from her.
If I was going to be a mother, I needed to figure out how to look like I had some clue as to what was going on. And fast.
We finished breakfast and I called the local clinic to get in with a doctor, explai
ning a lot of personal information we hadn’t made up yet. So I told the truth. I told the receptionist all my health history, except for the mental health part. I kept that to myself.
She booked my appointments for the next seven months and explained what I would need to bring in.
When it was done, I called Laertes and took my phone into the garden.
“How are you?” It had been a month since we last spoke.
“Stressed for a dead girl.”
“I imagine,” he laughed softly. “I’m sorry she had to go. It just made the most sense.”
“Are you coming here soon?” I asked.
“Christmas, I thought I might come then. If that’s all right. There’s still some things we need to discuss.” I could hear the waves in the background. He was on the beach.
“That works. Thank you for Deborah, Michael, and Branford. They’re perfect. As is the house. It’s stunning and exactly my style.”
“You worried when you saw those red bricks, didn’t you?” He laughed again.
“You did. You got me.” The conversation was awkward. I hated it but I continued to hate him and didn’t see any end to that. Even with my news, which I decided last minute not to share. I didn’t know how to say it aloud to him. I wanted to. I wanted to hurt his feelings by having something he never would. But Deborah was right, the idea of inflicting that pain on him made me sick.
“I love you,” he said after a second. “And if you need to talk, this is a perfect time. I find myself on the beach here a lot in the mornings.”
“All right,” I didn’t return the love. I knew it was in there, draped in hate, but I didn’t want to unwrap it. Not now. I hung up the phone and walked around the garden, coming to terms with the version of me I needed to choose.
Ophelia Agard was dead. A sad girl with a constantly broken heart and story you wouldn’t believe even if you were there.
Lila Jennings, an American in Oxford who had come from California to start a new life, a simpler one. She was shy and often seen in the company of old men. I didn’t think I really wanted to be her. She was a person my brother told me to be.
My favorite teacher was a Helen. I liked the name “Helen.” Sitting in the garden, staring at the last of the flowers as autumn began to settle in the valley, I decided to be Helen. She was smart and not afraid to show it. She was becoming independent but not afraid to ask for help. She enjoyed writing and pretending. She had a murky past, but she let it go. Instead of burying it, she stared up at the sky and imagined it lifted from her.
Helen.
It was a good start.
Chapter 29
Today, Tuesday, December 24
My first Christmas alone.
Except I’m not alone. I run my hands over the ball my stomach has become in the last few months. It’s getting bigger and bigger every day. My jumper doesn’t hide it anymore.
I’ve been coming here a lot, to the cloisters I assume Lucas spoke of when he told me he could imagine a life in Oxford. But I haven’t seen him. Not yet. I have to face the fact he moved on. He died and he left, and I have to be okay with that. I’m working on it.
I’ve decided that if the baby is a boy, he will be Lucas Page. And if she is a girl, she will be Lucia Paige.
The many footsteps on the hollow-sounding cobble in the courtyard create their own sort of echo. A white noise made by strangers rushing in excitement at the snow falling on the frozen yard next to us. My breath leaves my mouth as mist. I purse my lips and blow a little more as if exhaling a cigarette.
But I don’t smoke.
She did, and for the first time, I am grateful for it. Her memory will trigger in my mind whenever I walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
And lilacs.
Always lilacs.
I wish I could smell them now. I’d do anything to breathe air with her in it again. But it’s winter and they’re all dead. Like her.
It’s a long time coming but the absence of her in my life, during this important time, hits me hard. The tears catch me off guard. My friend won’t meet my baby. My most significant people won’t know each other.
Refusing to cover my face, I let the tears stream down my cheeks as I walk out onto the crunchy frozen grass, standing under a tree near the cloisters where I sought shelter.
I came to this part of Oxford for him, and somehow, she’s the one haunting me. But not physically. Not anymore. All I can hope for now is that she’s watching. She sees.
I wish they’d both appear. Two ghosts to keep me company.
But as lonely as I am, I remind myself to be grateful. I’m not as alone as I feel; I have Deborah, Michael, and Branford. I have people who love me. Laertes is flying in today. This is better than being dead, even if I am stuck missing my old life. A life I shouldn’t miss.
I lift my face to the hazy sky where the falling snow is one with the clouds, invisible until it gets close enough to touch the branches next to me, and then it appears all at once. A flurry coming down on us. The others in the background, strangers playing in the grass, spin and laugh and play.
Whereas I let the tears fall back and close my eyes, feeling the soft touch of the icy snowflakes as they land and begin to melt. I tell myself they’re the icy caress of the dead. People I loved. Their cold fingertips become streams joining the ones flowing from my eyes.
My fingers curl into balls, clutching the mittens I had Deborah make. In my mind, I’m holding on to him, just as I do every time I slip my hands into the mitts. The gloves, which were once a sweater much loved by a man I loved, cover and keep me warm. And one day I will make mittens for my son or daughter and I will tell our child that their father is holding their hand.
Missing Paige and Lucas both, I worry I am succumbing to my melancholic ways too easily, maybe because it’s Christmas. Perhaps, it’s that I’m habitually gloomy thanks to the pregnancy hormones.
When I open my eyes and lower my face to wipe it clean, a movement catches my attention. A shadow. A man moves in the pillars of the cloisters. A navy peacoat, dark hair, a handsome face. He wears the tragedy of his own death well. Of course, he does. He’s tragically beautiful, despite being a spirit. Or a hallucination.
The right side of his perfect mouth lifts just slightly, hinting at that smile.
Unafraid, I walk to him, crunching on the winter grass to the entrance. We don’t speak, I don’t think he can. My imagination isn’t strong enough for that. We amble along, hardly moving it seems. I imagine what his footsteps sound like, even hearing them if I’m quiet enough.
When we finally reach the end where the large arched wooden doors are, I lean against the pale brick wall and stare at him. I think he might be an actual ghost and not my imagination. It took him forever to arrive. He’s not the same kind of ghost as she was. Paige startled me when she first showed herself.
He’s not pale or damaged. He’s perfect in the places I can see. I would wager that if I were able to reach into the other world and undress him, I would find a hole. A grotesquely stained hole would mar his beautiful chest. The spot where I’d once rested my head, listening to the heartbeat that now would be noticeably missing. Today it would be an empty echo chamber that I could whisper my love into, and like a seashell, it might whisper back. But it wouldn’t be real. He’s not real.
He finally smiles and I wish he were really here.
By the suggestive grin on his face and the way he keeps flexing his hands, fighting reaching for me, in what would be an impossible embrace, I suspect he wishes it too.
“Happy Christmas,” I whisper.
“Happy Christmas,” I swear he whispers back.
I squeeze the mitts tighter and pretend it’s his hands holding mine.
A feeling I will have to learn to live without.
“You’re so calm,” he says softly.
“You’re not my first ghost.”
He smiles wider and nods. “Of course. I suppose you’re angry then that it took so long for me to come.�
�
“Were you lost?” I ask, noticing he doesn’t flicker the same way Paige did.
“Hiding.” He sighs, his hands flexing as if he wants to touch me. “The FBI just released me from their custody.”
“What? Does that mean—?” I stop and step forward, lifting a hand to his face. It’s cold but real. I press in, pushing on his skin. He tenses his neck trying to fight against the pressure. My stomach lurches. I gag and pull my hand away, taking a step back. “Not possible.”
“O,” he whispers, his eyes darting to my stomach. “I had no idea. I don’t know what to do.”
I blink and tears run my cold cheeks.
“Is it mine?” he asks, moving close enough for me to react. My hand lashes out, connecting with his cheek in a muffled slap. The sting on my fingers isn’t bad, the mitts protected them.
I stare at the mitts as heaving sobs shake my body, and rip them off. I throw them at his feet on the cobble.
He rushes me, wrapping around me. His smell is everywhere, smothering me with emotions and memories. There is no way to cope with this. I try to fight and get away, but he holds me tightly, pinning me to him. I expect Michael to come at any moment, but he doesn’t.
We’re alone in the cloisters and Lucas is real.
My whole heart is broken, shattered on the floor.
It was a lie. A setup. Alice had been right. They played me. They let me believe I lost everything. They let me hurt.
I can’t breathe I’m crying so hard. He lifts me and holds me in his arms, cradling me to him. My vision is blocked by the steady stream of tears, but I can feel when he sits down.
“I told you, it was going to be okay.”
His words bring a new emotion to the surface. Rage. I scramble from his arms and move away from him. “Okay?” I spit my words, wiping my face. “What part of mourning your death was okay for me? What part of thinking my brother shot you is okay? What part of losing the last member of my family because I thought he killed the one person I’ve always loved, is okay? Nothing about this is okay. I’m never going to be okay with what you’ve done to me!”
