by Megan Hart
“Thank you,” Ginny said aloud. “Thank you, Caroline. And…please…keep Noodles safe with you. Love her a lot…for me.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“The house looks amazing. How did you do it?” Kendra bounced Carter on her hip as the baby looked goggle-eyed at the lights strung along the molding.
“A little at a time. That’s all.” That was the truth too. A little bit every day for the past three weeks. A few strings of lights, a couple batches of cookies. Nothing too strenuous, nothing Sean could chastise her about.
Nothing, in fact, that he’d noticed. He’d come home from work and class every night, sometimes too late to even eat dinner. Sometimes he smelled of the bar. Sometimes he didn’t. When he did get home early, he watched TV and went to bed. He hadn’t so much as put a hand on her in weeks. Barely kissed her in the mornings. It was just like it had been…before, only this time she didn’t have the Inkpot to distract her.
“Well, it looks great. Thanks so much for inviting us.”
Ginny found a smile. “Glad you could make it. Help yourself to food, drink, whatever.” She looked at Carson and Kelly. “I have games set up in the den, if you want to play them. There are some other kids in there.”
Watching them scamper off as Kendra took the baby toward the buffet table, Ginny scanned the room for sight of her husband. He’d gone into the carport to put some beer in the giant tub of ice. She needed him to get some more napkins down from the high pantry shelf.
“Talk about a white Christmas.” This was Peg, a plate of food in her hands and a set of festive reindeer antlers on her head.
“Are you kidding? It’s been snowing since the end of November. I’ll be surprised if we ever have spring.”
“Pessimist.” Peg bit into a sugar cookie. “Ooh. Gran’s recipe?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Her sister laughed. “You’ve become ridiculously domestic.”
“Wow, and you look ridiculously festive.” Ginny looked at her own maroon, dropped-waist dress. It had a white-lace collar. She felt ridiculous. Like a pregnant toddler.
“You look gorgeous,” Peg said. “That dress is the perfect color for you.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Thanks.”
Peg laughed. “Oh stop. Great party, by the way. Who are all these people?”
“Beats me. Word must’ve spread around the neighborhood.” Ginny waved a hand toward the dining room, where she’d set the table with the vast display of food. “Neighbors. Some people Sean works with. You guys. Friends. You know, the usual Christmas open house crowd.”
“Who knew you were so popular?”
Ginny laughed and shifted, wishing she’d gone with her sneakers instead of these too-tight black flats. Her dogs were barking. “Not me.”
The door opened, bringing in a swirl of frigid air and whirlwind of pine needles from the decaying wreath on the front door. More people. She knew them. Louisa from the Inkpot, along with Tiffany, Michele and Becky. Ginny would’ve stepped back in surprise, but the wall was at her back and she had no place to go.
“I’ll let you go play hostess. I’m going to find Dale,” Peg said and abandoned her.
Not that Ginny should’ve felt abandoned. These people had been her friends once, or at the very least acquaintances. Louisa, in fact, had made quite the effort to stay in touch. Guilt stabbed her. She’d never returned Louisa’s calls or messages, and though she’d promised her that day in the grocery store, Ginny had never gone back to the Inkpot.
“Ginny! Oh my God, you look so great!” Tiffany had a loud voice and a bright smile, and she was a hugger. She came for Ginny with both arms open wide, engulfing her before patting and making baby goo-goo noises at her belly. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks. Umm…”
“Your husband invited us,” Tiffany said. “Came by the Inkpot with a cute, little printed-out invitation and said to make sure that the whole gang came. All of us.”
Of course Sean hadn’t mentioned it. He probably thought he was doing her a favor. Ginny smiled and nodded, accepted their hugs and congratulations, directed them toward the food and drink and where to hang their coats. She moved to close the door behind the last person, but someone pushed it open from the other side.
And there he was.
“Hi, Ginny,” Jason said. “Merry Christmas.”
The world whirled out from beneath her, but Ginny didn’t fall, and she didn’t spin. She would never do that again for him. Never.
“I came with Becky,” he said quietly. Standing a little too close. Voice a little too low so she had to strain to hear him. His gaze held hers a little too long. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Ginny blinked rapidly. She took a breath. “Oh, Jason. Yes you did.”
Then she turned on the flat heel of her pinching shoe and went upstairs, leaving him behind. It was quiet up there, the sounds of the party far enough away to make it clear to her she had responsibilities as a hostess to get down there and make sure everyone had enough to eat, enough to drink. Enough to make merry.
“Fa la la la fucking la,” she whispered with the bedroom door shut tight behind her back. She put her hands on her belly as the baby inside squirmed and kicked. Her heart hurt, and it hurt to breathe, but, no, she was not going to cry. She was not going to lose her shit here and now. Not tonight, not because of him.
He’d come with Becky. Of course he did. Becky had always had her sights set on him. Becky, with her low-cut shirts and tits hanging out, her tiny, tight ass and skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots, her blonde hair hanging down from underneath her trendy little caps.
Ginny’s jealousy was huge and ugly and unrepentant. It came with sharp teeth and jagged claws and venom, and it tore her up from the inside out. She panted with the effort of keeping her tears locked up tight, but her mouth opened in a silent, yawning scream she stopped by biting the meaty part of her palm. She closed her eyes and breathed.
She breathed.
In the darkness by her closet, something moved.
With the lights off, the push of air as whatever it was moved gave it away, rather than anything she could actually see. The only light came from beneath the door, and it crept only an inch or so along the floor around her feet. Then, the flash of something.
Eyes.
Now was not the time to fuck with her. Ginny stepped forward. “Who’s there? What are you doing in here?”
And then, more softly, “Caroline?”
It moved again, dark on dark. A hint of swirling hair, an outstretched hand. Ginny reached suddenly frigid fingers into the darkness. The room had gone so cold she was sure that in the light she’d have been able to see her breath.
“Ginny?” The door bumped into her, closing at once. She stepped away as Sean pushed it again. Light spilled into the room, bright enough to make her squint. “Are you— Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s too hot downstairs. I came up to change.” She tore at the hideous dress, moving toward the open closet door. She turned on the light, looked up and down, but whatever it had been was gone. If anything, it was colder in here than in the bedroom, and in a moment she saw why.
The cubbyhole door was open. Not a lot. Just a crack, but it was enough to let the tendrils of icy outside air seep into the closet. Ginny closed it, hard. She traced the outline of the door with her fingertips and turned to look at her husband who’d come in behind her.
“I’ll be down in a few minutes. I just want to put on something more comfortable.”
“I thought maybe you weren’t feeling good. Peg said you just disappeared.”
Ginny straightened, looking him in the eye, searching his face, that lovely face, for any sign. Anything at all, any glimmer or hint that he’d known what he was doing when he invited her “friends” from the Inkpot.
But no matter h
ow well she’d always been able to read him, Sean had never been transparent. For all the times she’d spent wishing he knew her, there’d been an equal number in which she’d been unable to understand him. Her husband stared back at her, his expression concerned but otherwise implacable.
“No. Just too hot. And this dress, I never should’ve put it on. It makes me look like Laura Ashley puked all over me.” She swiped at the collar and then the casual French twist of her hair.
“You look beautiful.”
“I look enormous and blotchy and disgusting!” Ginny shouted.
The words rang in the closet, softened only a little bit by the hanging clothes. They echoed. They stung.
“You look,” her husband told her, “beautiful.”
Then he backed out of the closet and left her there.
She was going out of her mind. That was all. The simplest and easiest explanation—she was crazy. There was nobody in the room; there had been nobody in the room. There was no ghost haunting this house.
But there was a ghost haunting her.
With shaking, swift fingers, Ginny used the mirror over her dresser to put on some lipstick and swipe some shadow on her eyelids. She dabbed perfume on her wrists and at her throat—lilac and vanilla, a special-blended scent she ordered from an online parfumerie. She put on a pair of black-velvet pants, not maternity but of material stretchy enough they still fit. Then a dark-green sweater from the back of her closet, also not maternity but cut with a swing to the hem that meant she could leave it untucked to her thighs and have it look like it was meant to be worn that way. She twisted her hair up again, but left a few loose curls to frame her face.
Then she went downstairs.
The party had grown while she was gone. More neighbors, her brother and Jeannie, hesitantly reconciled. A few more people from Sean’s office. It was too much to hope that Jason had gone. Ginny saw him standing next to Becky in the far corner of the living room, next to the Christmas tree. Becky was laughing, tossing her hair. Jason was looking everywhere but at her, both his hands full of crystal punch glasses.
Ginny moved through the guests and played hostess, ignoring them both.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Since finding the collar, Ginny no longer feared the pantry. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the napkins Sean had not yet managed to get down for her, though she’d reminded him a couple times. People were pulling paper towels off the holder, not that it was a big deal, but she was going to run out of those soon too. Now Ginny stretched up onto her tiptoes, reaching, her fingertips skating along the plastic-wrapped package of napkins she’d purchased specifically for the Christmas party because they had snowmen on them. Festive napkins, perfect for a party, except by the time she managed to get them down the party would be over and she’d be stuck using holiday napkins until the Fourth of July.
The door opened, then shut.
“I can get that for you.”
She knew that voice without turning, and there was scarcely enough room for her to whirl around. So she didn’t. With her back to him, Ginny said, “I can get it.”
“You can’t. Let me.”
She could feel him against her back, a heat she’d imagined a hundred times. No, a thousand. He didn’t touch her, but then he didn’t have to, did he?
“I can get it,” she repeated firmly, voice neutral, like she was speaking to a stranger.
Jason cleared his throat. Ginny’s fingers curled in the wire shelving in front of her. She willed herself to stay still as he reached over her to grab the napkins down and hand them to her. When it was done, he didn’t move away.
He said her name in a low voice, full of longing. More heat. Her cheeks flushed with it, but this was not the fire of lust kindling in her breastbone.
In all the times she’d imagined seeing him again, all the ways she’d thought about how this would go, never in one of them had she faced him with her belly pushed out in front of her as proof she was tied to another man. She’d never pictured him in her house. Her own fucking house.
Ginny turned, the expanse of her body pushing him back a step. “What are you doing here, Jason? Really. What the hell are you doing?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“It’s been almost a year.”
He nodded, his eyes fixed firmly on her face like he was afraid of looking anywhere else. He was looking at her, but not really seeing her. “I know. But I wanted to see you, and when Becky asked me…I just…”
One of the things she’d always liked best about him was the way they could talk to each other. Whatever else had failed, it had never been their words. Watching him now, his mouth working with nothing coherent coming out, Ginny wanted nothing more than for him to shut up before he ruined every memory she had of every conversation they’d ever shared.
“You shouldn’t be here, Jason.”
“I know.”
They stared in silence beneath the bright, bare bulb of the pantry. It was unforgiving, that light, shadowing his face and make the lines of it harder than she remembered. It highlighted the glint of silver in his hair, the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He’d aged since she’d seen him last. Well. She supposed she’d changed more than he had, and in a far less flattering manner.
Incredibly, he moved a step closer. Once, standing this close would’ve sent electricity arcing between them, a palpable spark. Now, there was nothing for her except the slow and dull throb of the grief she’d tried her very best to shed. The anger, rising.
Jason’s voice rasped when he spoke, “I’m sorry, Ginny.”
Sorry he wanted to see her? Or for that other thing she’d worried over and picked apart until it had left her raw? Or for something else she’d never figure out, she thought, looking him over. It didn’t matter. It was over. That cake was baked.
That door was closed.
She couldn’t squeeze by him. “Move.”
Jason backed up, hands out but not touching her, to let her pass. He snagged her sleeve before she could totally get away. She stopped, but didn’t turn. There wasn’t enough room.
“I’m sorry, Ginny.”
She couldn’t keep her voice steady, though she tried. “You should have come to Philadelphia.”
“I wanted to.”
“Not enough.” She shrugged to show him how little she cared, and it must’ve worked because from behind her, Jason let out a small sigh.
“Well…you look great. And…I guess I’m glad to see that you decided to…you know. Stay with your husband.”
At this she turned, her incredulity passing in a heartbeat.
“Jason,” Ginny said with something close to pity. Something more like condescension. “I never, ever intended to leave my husband.”
That was it. All she had to say. He let her go, and she took the napkins in her trembling hands, into the dining room, where she opened the package and filled the basket she’d placed there for just that purpose. She focused, focused, eyes blinking to keep them dry, swallowing hard against the tightness in her throat that could’ve been tears or a scream, she couldn’t tell the difference.
“Great party.” Becky lifted her glass of wine. “And you, wow, Ginny. You look so…happy.”
There might’ve been smug satisfaction on the woman’s face, or it might’ve been Ginny’s imagination. Either way, she straightened with a smile. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. You’re really glowing.” Was that something wistful in Becky’s tone?
“It’s hot in here.” Ginny made a show of fanning her face. “But thanks.”
Behind her, Sean appeared with a platter of mini corn dogs from the oven. He put them on the table with a nod toward Becky and looked at Ginny. “I was going to get the napkins for you. But I saw you already got them.”
Before she could answer, Kelly and Carson pounded through the dining roo
m with Ginny’s nephew Luke fast on their heels, though at eighteen, Luke was old enough to know better. She reached as he thundered past, and brought him up short.
“No running, it’s too crowded in here.”
Luke looked sheepish. “Sorry, Aunt Ginny. Just playing with the little kids.”
“Play something else,” she suggested, but not unkindly. “I don’t need my whole house torn apart.”
Becky was gone by the time she finished scolding, but Sean was still there. He watched Luke head out after the kids, then looked at her with an expression so odd her heart thumped in response. But if there was something he wanted to say, he wasn’t going to do it there.
The party went on. Food eaten, beverages drunk. Some people danced in the living room. Some kissed beneath the mistletoe. The front porch became the haven for the smokers, including Jason, whose profile Ginny could see through the kitchen window when she filled the kettle for tea. Sean was there too.
“Kelly? Carson?” Kendra came into the kitchen without her little baggage on her hip. She wore her coat and a worried expression. “Ginny, hi. Have you seen my kids?”
“I saw them earlier, playing with my nephew.” She turned from the sink and put the kettle on the burner but didn’t turn it on. A look at the clock told her it was late, probably past the kids’ bedtime. Close to her own, actually.
“I can’t find them.” Kendra gave her a weary smile. “I think they’re playing hide and seek.”
“Oh.” Ginny chewed the inside of her cheek. “Umm…well. Let’s find Luke and see if he knows where they are.”
Luke had abandoned the play of little kids in favor of facing off with his dad in Guitar Hero. The rapt audience of freshman girls from down the street made the reason for his decision obvious; nevertheless, a thin, helpless bite of annoyance stung her.
“I don’t know where they are, sorry,” Luke told her with an apologetic shrug. “I haven’t seen them in a couple hours.”
