by B. N. Toler
Should I ask her what’s wrong?
He was such a guy. The fact the woman he’d been dating for years just overheard him basically say hell would freeze over before he ever got hitched somehow totally flew over his head.
He cut his blue eyes to me pleadingly, begging me to clue him in. I wanted to smack him upside his head to knock some sense in him. Geez. Was he really this dense? At least he was in tune enough to recognize she was upset about something. Some men would’ve been too aloof to even see that.
I averted my gaze, pretending I didn’t catch his cry for help. Our conversation hadn’t been a serious heart-to-heart; just joking around between two friends, but it was clear from Anna’s reaction it hadn’t sounded like a joke. I wanted to throw him a lifeline, but what could I do? He’d said it. Anna had heard it. He hadn’t meant for Anna to hear it, and now he would have to explain his feelings to her.
I grimaced inside, hating it for both of them. That would be fun.
I bit my lip and cast him an apologetic look. He was on his own on this one.
Anna cleared her throat, blinked a few times, and pressed on a smile. “I’m still waiting on that burger for table five.”
“Okay, love,” Sniper replied, nodding a little too enthusiastically. “I’ll have it for you in two.”
Anna pressed her lips together and gave a curt nod in response, then spun around, grabbing my potpie for table ten and darted out of the kitchen.
Sniper glanced at me again, his brows furrowed in confusion, “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“I think so,” I sighed. “I don’t think the woman you’ve been dating for years was happy to hear about your aversion to marriage.”
“We’ve never even talked about it. I didn’t think she wanted to, either.”
Patting his shoulder in sympathy, I said, “Well my friend, I do believe you’ll be having a talk about it very soon.”
Rubbing a hand over his head, he let out a long breath. “I wanna kick me own arse for talking ‘bout it anyways. Ike always said I was the king of putting me foot in my mouth.”
Even after all this time, the mention of Ike always left me teetering on the edge of laughing or crying. The thought of Ike Mcdermott made me smile, but at the same time, the loss of him punched me in the gut. God, I missed him. That never seemed to ebb. Rather, it had settled into my bones, like the ache Grams always griped about before a storm. Except this ache was embedded in me—constantly there. I could feel it with every breath I took, but with time I’d learned to live with it.
“I’d have to agree with him,” I finally managed, pushing my thoughts away. There was a time and place for me to think about Ike, and right now wasn’t it. “You good to clean this up, or do you need me to do it?”
“I got it,” he mumbled, still frustrated with himself. As I exited the kitchen to go check on my tables, I pulled my cell from my pocket to text George.
Please let me know what the doc says.
It probably wouldn’t need more than a few stitches, but it wasn’t the cut I was really worried about. I was worried about him. I needed to not overwhelm him with my own anxiety and find a way to help him relax. But how? He was so in tune with me sometimes, it felt as if he knew my thoughts before I even had them.
“Charlotte!” Mr. Mercer practically crooned from the hostess stand.
I couldn’t fight my grin at the sight of him. The old man had a contagious cheerful aura. “Hey there, good looking. You here stag, or did you bring your better half?”
“Afraid it’s just me today,” he replied, his smile falling. “The misses isn’t feeling well.”
“Oh no. Is she okay?”
He waved a hand. “I think it’s a cold. I tried to take care of her, but she’s stubborn and insisted I come down and have lunch with you.”
Looping my arm through his, I led him to one of my booths. Just as he was about to take his seat, a pain zipped through my head making me hiss.
Mr. Mercer gently gripped my shoulders, steadying me as I pressed my hand to my head. “Are you alright, Charlotte, dear?”
The pain was frustrating, only coming in short flashes, but when it hit, the intensity was enough to stop me in my tracks, demanding to be acknowledged.
“Yes,” I assured him before clearing my throat. “Sorry about that. Just a flash headache, but it’s gone now.” I patted his chest. “Please, have a seat.”
“You sure?” he asked. “I can’t have both my girls feeling bad.”
I smiled as he finally sat. “I’m fine, really, and I’m sad to hear Mrs. Mercer isn’t feeling well, but I always love a visit from you.” Then to distract him, I quickly added, “You just relax, and I’ll grab you a sweet tea.”
“You’re a doll,” he gushed, his eyes smiling under his bushy gray brows.
“I’ll be right back.”
On my way back to the kitchen I passed Anna vigorously wiping down a table, like it had wronged her and she was punishing it.
Maybe because Sniper had just mentioned him, or maybe because I was feeling terrible about George and Anna, somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Ike’s voice. She’s not upset, his tone sarcastic, not at all.
I smiled. He was always good at making the heavy moments a little lighter with his humor. Maybe that’s why I heard his voice when everything seemed like it was going wrong.
The heaviness returned as Anna knocked over a salt shaker, and it skidded off the table, shattering on the floor.
“Ugghhhh,” Anna groaned as she tossed her towel down and furiously began tearing the chairs away from the table to assess the mess. Yep, she wasn’t happy. A few guests at nearby tables eyed her, and I moved between them and her, doing my best to assist.
Don’t break eye contact with her, Ike’s voice said. That’s how they sense fear.
Again, I pushed my thoughts of Ike away, so I could focus on Anna. “Hey,” I tried cautiously. “You oka—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she interrupted as she grabbed her towel and began gathering the broken glass and salt into a pile.
“I’ll go get a broom,” I offered.
“I got it, Charlotte,” she insisted as she stood and pushed past me.
“Okay,” I said mostly to myself, frowning as she whizzed away. She’d never been snippy with me before, so this was unfamiliar territory. Was she mad at me? Or just Sniper? Damn him, and his stupid foot-in-mouth tendencies. Now I was in the doghouse, too. I decided not to push her. I would try again when she was calmer. Sometimes people just need some time to cool down.
George
Three stitches and one-hundred-fifty dollars later, I was at the gym, sweat dripping down my face and neck as I hustled on the stair climber. My thumb throbbed and my quads burned, but I pressed on, determined to drive the pissed-off feelings out of me. Why was I so mad? I wasn’t angry with my wife. I was angry with me. But what could I do? I just wanted to help her, and I was going mad not being able to. My wireless headphones were in, Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus blaring in my ears as I climbed as fast as I could.
Another ten minutes and I was gassed, my chest burning as I gulped in air. After hitting pause on the machine, the stairs slowed, and I used the bars to hold myself up while I caught my breath. Leaning down, I closed my eyes. The older I got, the longer it took me to recover from a good workout. “You’re getting old, George,” I wheezed to myself.
“Or maybe you just work out too hard,” Charlotte said, causing me to whip my head toward her.
“Hey,” I said, surprised. “What are you doing here?” She never came to the gym with me; she usually covered the restaurant while I was here. Warm Springs didn’t have a fancy gym like big cities, but it had Ed’s Sweat Shop, which was really just a four-bay garage Ed Snider had thrown some cardio and weight machines in and let people pay him twenty bucks a month to use.
Charlotte shrugged one shoulder, her expression uncertain. “You didn’t respond to my text. I was worried.”
I instantly felt like a dick
for not texting her back. I was so wound up after the doctor’s office, I’d come straight to the gym. “I’m sorry,” I sighed, wiping my face with my shirt before stepping off the stair climber. I held my bandaged hand up and added, “Three stitches. It’s fine.”
Charlotte glanced at my hand, then down at her feet for a moment, before peeking back up at me. “I know I haven’t been…myself. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head adamantly. Yes, I was frustrated, but never with her. I felt terrible that she thought that. “Babe, I’m sorry too. I just want to help, and I feel like I’m failing you.”
This time she shook her head. “You have no idea how much you help me, George. I couldn’t do this without you. But I know it takes a toll on both of us.”
I closed my eyes, guilt overshadowing the frustration. Neither of us were doing each other any good by constantly worrying about the other, and given there was nothing she could do to stop the spirits, the last thing she needed was me adding to it by sulking about not being able to do more. Any residual anger fled out of me as I met her earnest gaze and sighed, “I want you to have peace, babe. I want to give you that.”
Carefully taking my injured hand in hers, making sure not to touch my bandaged thumb, she squeezed. “Believe me, you do.” She hesitated briefly as she met my gaze, her pleading eyes telling me I wasn’t going to like what she said next. “But I have to get her out of there. I can’t leave her there, George.”
My shoulders tensed instinctively at the thought of returning to New York. I hated what she was saying, but I knew there was no way around it. If she was going to find any peace, Charlotte had to go back and help the little girl we’d come to call Click cross over. She wanted me to tell her I understood. That I would support her.
I nodded. I did understand. My wife had a heart the size of Texas, and it wouldn’t let go of this, leaving Charlotte with no choice. Maybe I couldn’t protect her from this, but I could support her and make sure she knew I was with her, no matter what.
“Okay.” I squeezed her hand back. “Whatever you need, Charlotte. I’m here. Always. The good, the bad—”
“—the ugly,” she finished. Her eyes glossed over as she studied my face before she flung herself on me, wrapping her arms around my neck.
I was gross and drenched in sweat, but I squeezed her to me, inhaling her. “I love you.”
“I know you do, and it means everything to me,” she murmured against my neck. When she pulled away she smiled at me.
“I’ll see you at home then?”
“Yeah, babe. I’m right behind you.”
She nodded a few times. “I’ll get dinner started.”
I quirked my brow in amusement. “Mac and cheese?” Charlotte wasn’t the best cook, but she had a few signature dishes she specialized in, like macaroni and frozen pizza. Thank goodness we owned a restaurant, and my mother and Mrs. Mercer liked to cook for us, or we’d live strictly on the diet of college kids.
“Yeah,” she smirked. “And Mrs. Mercer’s leftover meatloaf, too. My reheating skills are expert level.”
We both chuckled, a little of the tension between us ebbing before she rested her hands on my chest and stood on her tip-toes to kiss me. “I love you.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’ll never know, Charlotte, how much that means to me.”
I stared after her as she left. Damn I was a lucky man. A thought crept into my mind as she disappeared around the corner, and I grabbed hold of it as I pulled out my phone to shoot Sniper a text. I might only be able to be supportive, but maybe there was someone that could do more.
What was the name of the lady you saw on television you were telling me about earlier?
Charlotte
A week later we were back in New York. I tried to convince George I could go alone, hoping to give him a little break from the insanity being married to me brought about, but he wouldn’t hear of it. There was no way he was letting me go by myself.
He’d been tense the whole drive, his knuckles turning white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and I knew saying anything would make it worse, but after a few hours, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you okay?” I finally asked just before we entered the city.
He gave me a quick smile before focusing on the road again. “I’m fine, babe. Just frustrated with this traffic.” It was true, the traffic was horrendous, but I knew it was more than the traffic; he would never admit it, though. As long as I was worried about Click, he’d be tense. We’d planned on going to the Hell House before checking into the hotel, and I hoped we could plan on a simpler evening afterwards.
“Maybe we could curl up and watch some DIY show, like a normal couple. That sounds like pure bliss,” I joked, hoping to make him smile. Our situation sucked, but we were good at laughing about the hard stuff for the most part. George did smile, but I could tell it was more to humor me than it was genuine.
He took my hand and squeezed it. “That sounds nice. I’d like to be out of the Hell House before dark,” George reluctantly acquiesced.
“Definitely,” I agreed.
A couple of hours later, hand-in-hand, we approached the house, every nerve in my body tingling as I sensed eyes on me before we’d even stepped foot on the property.
When my steps slowed, George knew. “She sees you already,” he said, squeezing my hand protectively.
With each visit, I never made it in the house without Agnus staring me down and ripping into me about my promise to help her. This time was no different. When she morphed before me, I paused. “When will you help me?” she bit out through gritted teeth, the muscles in her face and neck tight.
Truthfully, knowing what she’d done, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was to help her, but more than that, I didn’t know how to help her. Her unfinished business wasn’t anything I could help her with. She’d pegged her reason for being trapped in limbo on the fact that she needed someone to know what she’d done to the girls—she claimed she needed absolution—but that wasn’t it because she wasn’t sorry. The one thing keeping her in limbo was fear. She was afraid of what was next for her, and that was the anchor that tied her here. The real reason Agnus couldn’t cross over was because she didn’t really want to go, which meant there was nothing I could do for her. Of course, I didn’t dare tell her that. If she discovered my promise to aide her in crossing over was bullshit, she’d harass me to the point I wouldn’t be able to enter the house at all, and I couldn’t risk that while Click was still inside. Inhaling a deep breath, I ignored her, not even looking at her as I brushed past her and entered the house. We’d had this conversation several times. I’d made it very clear I’d only help her after all of the girls had crossed over.
“Answer me!” she shouted belligerently as I ascended the stairs. As a soul, I knew she couldn’t touch me, or harm me physically, but her hostility still made me feel on edge. No one likes being shouted at. Again, I didn’t respond; I refused to engage with her and reinforce her bad behavior with a reaction. Just as before, she followed me, hurling her insults the whole way, but she always stopped short of entering Click’s room. For some reason she never followed me in, a small victory I was grateful for—I wouldn’t be able to focus on Click with Agnus constantly berating me.
Click was trapped in a bedroom with no window, and even with the door open, the light from the hall windows did little to illuminate the room, no matter the time of day. Turning on the solar lantern we’d brought, I sat on the floor and watched the young girl. She didn’t acknowledge my presence, or even that the room was now lit. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve been back. I’ve thought about you every day, sweet girl.” When she didn’t respond to my greeting, I sat quietly and observed her. I stared at her—studied her face, the blank look in her eyes, and even counted her steps—wondering if there was any rhyme or reason to it, but nothing surfaced for me. Was she traumatized? Maybe whatever horrible things that had happened to her in this house caused some kind of psycho
logical snap and she numbed out. I’d heard of such things. If that were the case, I was useless to her.
Dropping my head in my hands, I let out a frustrated growl. How the hell are you going to help her, Charlotte?
George’s hand gently gripped my shoulder. “You’ll figure it out,” he assured me. “She’s been here for years…if it takes one more to figure out how to help her cross over, I don’t think she’ll mind much.”
I nodded, unable to fault his reasoning, but I hated the thought of taking an entire year to help the poor girl. I wanted to help her now. As I stood and met his stare, the weight of my ineptitude overwhelmed me, and I blurted out, “How could God let this happen?” His gaze fell and I knew my question had caught him off guard. I have never struggled with my beliefs—whether or not there really was a God—as much as I had since finding Click, and I just couldn’t get the question out of my head. Feeling foolish, I started to turn back to Click, but he stopped me.
“Why would He let anything bad happen?” He let out a ragged breath, his eyes filled with pain. “Charlotte, I wasn’t raised around religion like you were, but my parents brought us up to believe in God. My brother died—my twin—and I swore I’d never forgive God for taking my best friend from me, and I was well on my way to keeping that promise. Then you showed up. And I was suddenly staring down a reason to forgive Him. There was a verse from Isaiah on the program at Ike’s memorial about God giving you beauty for ashes, or something like that.”
I nodded, knowing the verse. “It was God’s promise to deliver his people from their plight.”
“Well, I don’t know all that, but I remember that line. I thought it was bullshit,” George huffed. “Until you. Maybe God did let Ike be taken, but He also brought me you.”
Pushing up on my toes, I wrapped my arms around his neck. I had no idea what I’d expected him to say when I asked him such a deep question, but he’d handled it well and had given me something to hold on to. I wasn’t sure what the beauty for ashes was in this situation with Click, but George had reminded me that in the past, when we’d stood neck deep in ash, we’d found beauty before us.
