by Ray Garton
“Okay, we’ll see if we can do that,” she said. “In the meantime, if you see them again, call us, then let them know you mean no harm, you just want to know where they’re from, and see if you can keep them here till we arrive.”
David and Jenna stood on the front porch as the deputies made their way back to their patrol car. Deputy Caruso said something Jenna couldn’t make out, and Deputy Hooper hooted with laughter.
“I called for police and they sent a comedian and his number-one fan,” David said on the way up the stairs. In the hallway, he said, “Why is Miles’s light on?”
Jenna explained she had left it on so Miles would stay in his room while the police were there. She leaned into his open doorway. He was asleep in bed, so she turned off the overhead, leaving on the desk lamp. She couldn’t wait to get to bed—she was exhausted.
David lay awake beside Jenna for a couple hours after she fell asleep. He’d expected to be worried about starting a new job the next day, but that was not it. He was listening for the laughter of young boys. Each time he started to doze off, something startled him awake, and he listened again, wondering if he’d heard it.
He did not hear it again that night, and finally drifted off to sleep at 4:24 A.M.
“Your son probably just wants to let you know he’s all right,” Mrs. Frangiapani said as she put a plate of lemon bars on the coffee table in front of Jenna and Kimberly. Next to the lemon bars was a plate of cupcakes, and next to that a bowl of candied walnuts, and they each had a cup of coffee. The squat, slightly hunched woman of about seventy, with an Italian accent slightly fainter than her mustache, had been getting up and bringing things from the kitchen since they’d arrived. “The cupcakes I made last night, but the lemon bars are from this morning, so be sure and have at least one of those before you go. Can I get you anything else?”
Jenna said, “No, thank you, Mrs. Frangiapani. Please, sit down and talk with us.”
Kimberly had picked Jenna up in the almond-colored Durango SLT at nine that morning. Jenna was armed with a list of possible mediums, and they had visited each one. Mrs. Frangiapani, a psychic medium, wasn’t on the list. They sat on the sofa in the small, doily-dappled living room of Mrs. Frangiapani’s Victorian house in Ferndale.
“Well, I love to cook, and my Tony is usually here to eat all this,” Mrs. Frangiapani said, “but he died last year. He was a podiatrist, my Tony, so what’d he do? He broke the big toe on his right foot. He was limping around here after we got back from the doctor and it was all bandaged up, and he fell in the bathroom, hit his head on the side of the tub. Went into a coma and never came out. So I’ve been eating all this stuff by myself, and I’m afraid I’ve put on some weight, but I’m too old to care.” She sat down on the rolled arm of the sofa beside Jenna, reached down and took Jenna’s left wrist in her hand.
At first, Jenna thought the old woman was taking her pulse, but she was simply holding her wrist lightly in her hand. “What are you doing?” Jenna asked.
“Look, angel,” Mrs. Frangiapani said, “you don’t need to worry about this right now, because there’s something wrong at home. You having problems with your husband?”
“No, not at all.”
“Well, something’s wrong, and you should be taking care of that now, not this business with—”
“I’m seeing my dead son, that’s what’s wrong at home.”
“That’s the problem?” Mrs. Frangiapani said. “Well, for heaven’s sake, that shouldn’t be a problem. He’s just waving at you like a child waves at a passing train.”
Jenna watched the old woman, waiting for her to say more, but Mrs. Frangiapani had no more to say. Tears burned the back of Jenna’s throat, and she swallowed a couple times before saying, “If I believe that, Mrs. Frangiapani, I’ll go insane.”
“Oh, a lot of people do, angel. That’s why I’m telling you to forget about it. It’s nice that it happened, but now it’s time to let it go. It may never happen again, or it may happen the same time every day for the rest of your life, but either way, you can’t obsess over it. Just let it go.”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Jenna said. “If I believed that Josh is conscious someplace where I can’t reach him, it would drive me—”
“Oh, angel, it doesn’t matter what you believe.”
“But I’ve never believed in this sort of thing before.”
Mrs. Frangiapani shrugged her round shoulders and said, “You didn’t need to before. Now you don’t have much choice, do you? Listen, sweetie, if I were like a lot of other mediums out there, I could come over and read your house and charge you by the room. But I wouldn’t see or hear anything, because those communications, they’re meant for you alone, Jenna. And if he really is trying to tell you something, then all you have to do is pay attention and see what he wants. Maybe there’s something you can help him resolve.”
Jenna said, “But how can I reach him?”
“He’s pretty good at reaching you, isn’t he? If he’s got something to say, he’ll say it.” She turned to Kimberly, who was eating a lemon bar. “How many did you go to before me today?”
“You’re the fourth,” Kimberly said.
“And they all wanted money before they’d say a word, didn’t they?”
Kimberly and Jenna nodded. .
First, there was Mrs. Perez. She lived in a tiny house at the edge of the commercial district in Eureka. A giant hand with an eye in the center of the palm stood in front of her house with the words PSYCHIC READINGS at the bottom. Jenna and Kimberly had agreed that was a bad sign, but decided to go inside anyway. Mrs. Perez wanted fifty dollars just to listen to what they wanted. They left immediately.
Ada Brodky was a frail-looking woman with a cigarette-damaged voice and thick glasses in black frames. She appeared to be in her late fifties, although Jenna suspected she wasn’t as old as she looked. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. Her sandy hair, lightening with gray, was pulled back tight and kept in a bun. She lived in an old mobile home on a small spot of land in Fortuna. Ada Brodky listened to Jenna for a few minutes, then put a nicotine-stained hand on her shoulder and said, “I charge two-fifty a sitting. They last anywheres from one to two hours, usually one. I work alone, no assistants, no tricks. If you got a poltergeist, you need to go see somebody else, ‘cause I don’t do poltergeists no more, not since I got a tooth knocked out by one. I’ll be honest with you, dear, I’m not one of them vultures who’ll make you come back again and again. I can take care of most things in one or two sittings. And if there’s no contact—it happens sometimes—then you don’t pay, that’s my policy. Outside of that, I can’t help you. You’re a nice young lady, but I gotta make a buck, because as you can see, I’m not exactly livin’ in luxury here.”
Kimberly had turned for the door then, but Jenna touched her elbow and said, “No, wait.” She turned to Ada Brodky and said, “You really think you might be able to contact my son in one sitting?”
“One or two, no more. If he’s there.”
Jenna thought she would have little trouble raising the money typing and editing college papers. She got Ada Brodky’s card and slipped it into her purse.
Next, they saw Wayne Lapidus at the Humboldt County Institute of Paranormal Research. The institute occupied a single tiny office in a small building it shared with a refrigerator repairman, a key maker, a dry cleaner, and a Kinko’s. Wayne Lapidus was a chubby man who appeared to be uncomfortable in his own skin, because he never stopped picking at his charcoal sweater or fidgeting in his chair as they spoke. He listened to Jenna for a while, then offered what he called an initial consultation. After that, he’d said, if he saw reason to investigate further, they could work out a schedule. Jenna asked how much all that would cost.
“Impossible to say. The consultation itself costs fifteen hundred.”
Jenna and Kimberly had laughed. Jenna had explained she could not possibly pay that much and thanked him for his time.
“Hold on,”
Wayne Lapidus had said. “If you really need to talk to someone, I might be able to help you out. I know of someone who might talk to you for nothing.”
He had given them Mrs. Frangiapani’s phone number.
“Well, I’m retired now,” Mrs. Frangiapani said as she got up off the arm of the sofa and turned to look down at them. “So I don’t take money for it anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be, and it takes a lot out of me, talking to the dead. But I’m telling you, angel, you don’t need a medium. You just need to go back home and pay attention to your ... You’ve got a husband and a son, right?”
Jenna nodded and smiled. “How did you know?”
“Remember, I’m a psychic medium. I’m just not as sharp as I used to be. Things still come through, but not as strong anymore. Tony used to say my psychic vision needed glasses. But I’m getting enough on you to know you should go home and fix the problem there and stop worrying about this, because this is not a problem.”
“But there is no problem at home,” Jenna said.
Mrs. Frangiapani reached down again and took Jenna’s wrist in her hand. She frowned, and her lower lip protruded for a moment. “Does your son have a puppy?”
“No. But we’ve been talking about getting a dog.”
“No, that’s not it.” Mrs. Frangiapani closed her eyes, shook her head once. “It’s got nothing to do with a dog, it’s just...” She opened her eyes and shook her head again. “I don’t know, it didn’t come through very strong.” She released Jenna’s wrist. “You say everything’s okay with the husband?”
“Yes, everything’s been fine. But... well, David wouldn’t approve of this.”
“Ah, he wouldn’t approve of you coming to me about your son? So you’ve kept it a secret. Then you have a problem, angel, because secrets are always problems. You need to go home and talk to him and take care of your little boy. Something’s bothering the boy, isn’t it?”
“He’s been having nightmares.”
Mrs. Frangiapani cocked her head, birdlike, and frowned. “You sure they’re nightmares?”
Jenna laughed. “That’s what my mother said. You’d get along well with her—she likes to cook, too. Yes, they’re nightmares.” Her smile quickly dissolved. “Why?” A deep chill passed over her. “Is there something wrong with Miles?” she whispered.
“No, angel, what I’m trying to tell you is you got those two and yourself to worry about. Don’t worry about the dead.”
“So ... you’re not going to help me?”
“There’s nothing I can do for you, don’t you understand? You don’t need help from me, your family needs help from you. You’re still hurting from the loss of your son, you haven’t gotten over that yet—do I have to draw you a picture, angel?”
Jenna felt almost as if she’d been slapped. It was not very different from what David had told her—and again, it rang true.
“Listen,” the old woman said, “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if my Tony came through the front door right now with his golf clubs, complaining about how his chiropractor friend cheats on the links, then disappeared like a cloud of smoke. It wouldn’t surprise me because it happened a million times in life, but I’m not going to sit around waiting for it, because it’ll probably never happen again.”
“Or it may happen every day,” Jenna said.
“You just never know. Which is another good reason to love the people in your life as much as you can while they’re alive. And when they move on, you go on with your life and you don’t dwell on it, because if you do, you go crazy. If it should happen that one of them pops up and says hello, you enjoy it, then let it go. You hear me? You let it go. Instead, you should be working on that problem at home. Now.” She flattened her palms together and smiled. “I made a cheesecake last night. You can’t leave without having a piece.”
Later, having turned down Mrs. Frangiapani’s cheesecake, Jenna and Kimberly went to Jack in the Box for lunch. They talked over Jumbo Jacks and curly fries.
Kimberly said, “I think I agree with everything Mrs. Frangiapani said.”
“You’re right. She made perfect sense. But believe it or not, I’m actually thinking of rounding up enough money to have Ada Brodky come over to the house for a ... what did she call it? A sitting?”
“Why didn’t you say so while we were there?” Kimberly said. “I’ll spot you the two-fifty—I know you’re good for it.”
“You don’t have to do that. I should be getting some calls on those cards I posted. A few of those, and I can—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Look, if you want my advice, I’d say do what Mrs. Frangiapani said to do. I think it makes a lot of sense. But if you really want someone to come out to the house, you might as well do it and get it over with.”
“That’s very nice of you, Kimberly, but I don’t like taking money from—”
“You’re not taking, you’re borrowing.”
“Well... first I should find out when David is going to be working. I don’t know his schedule yet, and I really don’t want him to walk in and find a medium in the house trying to ... well, you know.” She sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Kimberly dropped Jenna off at the house a few minutes before three in the afternoon. The day was misty and damp, and Jenna hugged herself as she went up the front walk and into the house. As she took off her coat and hung it on one of the wall hooks just inside the front door, she heard the cracking and popping of a fire in the fireplace. Jenna wondered if Martha had started it. She stepped into the living room to find David on one knee in front of the fire, stoking it, with an auto race on television. Jenna remembered that the garage was cleaned out and they were parking the Toyota and pickup truck in there now—she hadn’t seen David’s pickup parked out front and had assumed he hadn’t gotten back yet.
“Hi,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Oh. When did you get home? I thought you were working today.”
“No, today was just an orientation. I work tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday. And I have to be available to fill in for people.”
“Oh.” Jenna stood just inside the living room doorway, frozen in place. She had not expected David to be home yet, and had no idea what to tell him. She couldn’t lie—he would be able to tell.
“Where’d you go today?” he asked.
“With Kimberly. We went out to lunch.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?”
David stood and came to her, embraced her as he laughed. “You look like you just did something terrible.”
So you’ve kept it a secret, Mrs. Frangiapani had said. Then you have a problem, angel, because secrets are always problems.
“Oh. Well, I didn’t know you’d be home so early, so I didn’t make any lunch, and I went out with Kimberly instead, so ... I’m sorry.”
“Honey, I’m not helpless—I fixed a sandwich. When does Miles get home?”
“He should be here any minute.”
He gave her a kiss and whispered, “Got time for a quickie?”
“Oh, honey, not right now,” Jenna said. “I’m sorry, but I feel really full from lunch. I had a big hamburger.”
“Okay, later, then.” He kissed her again, and she reached down and gave his ass a two-handed squeeze.
“How do you like work?” she asked.
“It’s great. Nice layout, well-organized. Everybody seems like good people. I think I’ll like it.”
“I’m so happy you got it.”
“You just want me out of the house so you can run off and shop and have girly lunches with your girlfriend.”
Jenna laughed. “Is leftover stew for dinner all right with you?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Okay, then, I don’t have to worry about dinner, so I can focus on finding an electrician and making Mom an appointment with an eye doctor.”
“I replaced the bulb on the back porch,” David said. “It works fine now.”
“I’m stil
l calling an electrician. Enjoy your races.” Jenna went into the kitchen to find the Yellow Pages.
David had thought of the boys in the backyard many times throughout the day. He wondered if Deputies Hooper and Caruso had found them, or any trace of them. Most of all, he wondered if they were all right.
They ate dinner in the living room, where it was warm. David found himself listening for something other than the television. But he wouldn’t hear them in the living room, not if they were playing in the backyard. He finished his bowl of stew and got up halfway through a rerun of Friends. “Delicious, honey,” he said as he left Jenna, Miles, and Grandma in the living room.
David rinsed his bowl, put it in the sink, and went to the breakfast nook. He leaned his palms on the tabletop, looked out the window, and saw nothing but his own reflection over the darkness outside. He stayed there a moment, listening. A storm was blowing in and the chain swings chattered in the night like metal teeth. The branches of an elm tree in the backyard scratched against the house. But he heard nothing else.
It was not until later that night, ten minutes after Jenna had fallen asleep in bed beside him, that he heard them again. The sound of their laughter was quickly whipped away by the wind, but he heard snatches of it fluttering through the night outside, the phantom laughs of little boys. He moved carefully to avoid disturbing Jenna as he got out of bed. He quickly put on his sweats and running shoes and left the bedroom without making a sound.
Miles’s bedroom door was closed and the overhead light was on again. David ignored it for now. He moved slowly and carefully through the house because he did not want to turn on any lights. In the kitchen, he went to the back door and peered out the window. It was a dark night, but he could see movement in the yard.
David carefully unlocked and opened the back door a crack and listened. The ivy leaves in the yard gossipped quietly in the wind. The boys were laughing, but sounded as if they were trying to keep their voices low. It was secretive laughter. As he picked up the flashlight with his left hand, he used his right to carefully, silently open the back door all the way. He switched the Mag-Lite to his right hand, put his left on the light switch, and stepped out onto the porch. He could make out their figures over by the swing set and slide, but they weren’t playing on the equipment. They appeared to be huddled together, whispering and laughing.
