by E. C. Bell
“Why didn’t you just let Rosalie die? Leave me here with her crazy-ass ghost, forever?” Arnie asked. “You could’ve done it, once she shot herself. Couldn’t you?”
I thought back to the moment when Rosalie pulled the trigger. What had I been thinking? Why hadn’t I just left?
“I had to prove that I hadn’t shot her,” I said shortly. “If I’d run away, the cops would have assumed that I was guilty, and I couldn’t have that.”
“Oh.” He nodded, as though he understood, but his inner light dimmed even more. “I thought maybe you did that for me.”
“No, Arnie. I didn’t. Sorry, but that’s the truth.”
“And there really is no more you and me, is there?”
“No,” I said. “And it isn’t because you’re dead, either. There hasn’t been a you and me for a long time.”
“I—I guess I knew that,” he said. He slid down the lockers, to his knees. “Even if I wait for you to die, you still won’t want me, will you?”
“No, Arnie. I won’t.”
“Yeah. It would be stupid, trying to keep our relationship alive, when it died a long time ago. Right?”
That observation surprised me a bit. Maybe Arnie wasn’t as thick as I’d always thought. “Yeah,” I said. “It would.”
Arnie nodded again, looking exhausted and all but extinguished. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what I did to you. You know?”
“I know,” I said. And I hoped he was, really and truly this time. Not like all the other times when he’d just been trying to get something over on me, but really and truly.
“And I hope, someday, you can forgive me,” he whispered.
“I hope so, too,” I said.
He chuckled, but it sounded like soil shifting in a grave, and I shuddered. “You sure got honest,” he said.
“Honesty’s all we’ve got left,” I said. “We can’t lie, you and me. Not now. Not if you want to move on to the next plane of existence.”
“I think I do,” he said.
I explained the options to him in a quiet, measured tone. Watched his light return a lumen at a time, and watched the dirty white of that light bleach until he was nearly transparent.
Mom had been right. He was going to move on, right away. If we hadn’t been there, to guide him, my guess was that he would have made one more bad choice in a life and death filled to the brim with them.
“I can start again?” he asked.
“If you want,” I said.
His eyes closed, and I placed my hands as close to his chest as I could. I could feel the cold, but ignored it. Ignored everything but lending him my power, so he could move on to whatever was next.
“I better make sure I pick better parents next time,” he whispered. “Myrtle and Ralph were pretty damned bad, know what I mean? I don’t know how I coulda turned out any different.”
“Let that thought go, Arnie,” I said. “All you can do is work with the parents you get. If you can, remember not to blame them for the mistakes they make. That way leads—”
“To a short, nasty, brutish life,” he breathed. “Just like this one. I’ll try to remember.”
I thought I felt something cold touch my arm. Looked down and saw a string of light had emanated from Arnie and attached to me.
I didn’t even need my mantra.
“Don’t do that, Arnie,” I said. “You’re ready to move on.”
The light string disappeared with a small pull. Then, the first bee of light migrated through Arnie’s transparent skin. Surprisingly, it was white.
“I’m afraid,” he said. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You aren’t,” I said, and lent him my strength. The bees of light collected under his skin and then popped free, one after another. “And you’ll be safe, I promise.”
More and more of the lights pushed through his skin and out into the air. There were quite a few black, but many more red and yellow. And enough white that the mini-storm that formed around him, and me, was bright, vivid light.
“Forgive me?” he said.
“Someday,” I replied as the blizzard that was his essence blew over me, and finally, finally stopped.
He had moved on. I was free.
I fell to the floor on the spot where he’d been, and felt like I’d been hit by a truck.
“Congratulations, girl,” Mom said. “He moved on.”
I opened my eyes and saw her crouched beside me. She was smiling.
“You did well,” she said. “Very, very well.”
AS MOM HELPED me up, Mike, the cop who’d given Mom the dog, scurried over. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Do you need any help?”
“No,” Mom said. “She’s just a little woozy. She moved a spirit on just now. Didn’t you, girl?”
Oh yeah, just what I wanted. My mother bragging about my moving-ghosts-on abilities, in front of cops. But Mike just looked awed, as I scrambled to my feet.
“What is going on over there?” It was Reena, still taking photos for all she was worth. She scowled in our direction. “Is she going to have a seizure or something?”
“No,” Mike snapped before I could. “She’s not having a seizure.” He took me by the arm and gently helped me to the door. “Don’t listen to her,” he said, jerking his head in Reena’s direction. “She’s not very perceptive, and she can really be mean.”
“Just like she was in high school,” I said.
“What are they still doing here?” Reena said angrily. “If she’s not having a seizure, they really have to leave.”
“Guess people never change,” Mike said.
I shrugged. “Sometimes they do.”
I pulled my arm free and tried my best to keep myself upright. “Thanks for everything, Mike. We’ll see ourselves out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Mom said. She sounded positively chipper. “We are just fine.”
She linked her arm in mine, and we left the locker room, and then the half-demolished school. The parking lot looked like it was two miles long, and I didn’t think I’d make it to the car, but Mom helped me, easily.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll get you home.”
She led me to the passenger side of James’s Volvo. “What are you doing?” I asked her weakly. “I can drive.”
“No, I don’t think you can,” Mom said, and rather unceremoniously deposited me in the car. “Don’t worry. I remember how to drive.”
Her attitude changed a little when she got behind the wheel and tried to shift gears for the first time. But after some fairly fierce grinding, we were off and running, and in a few minutes, she had me home.
“Can I sleep now, Mom?” I asked, as she half-dragged me up the stairs to the blood red door.
“As soon as you have drunk at least five glasses of water,” she said. “You know. For the dehydration.”
Of course.
Marie:
Watching the Dead Cat Bounce
“SO, HOW ARE you doing it, Mom?” I asked, two days after I had been kidnapped and then moved Arnie on. “You look better than I do. What is it? Black magic? White magic? What?”
She looked as healthy as a really skinny horse, while I still felt like I’d been beaten with a very large stick.
“Might be the vitamins,” she said, straight-faced, then laughed at my look of disbelief.
“No,” she said. “I believe I’m feeling better because you did so well moving Arnie Stillwell on.”
“Thank you,” I said. Then I stared at her. “You’re not kidding me, are you?”
“Not at all!” she exclaimed. “You did a wonderful job, and in an extremely difficult situation.”
“I suppose,” I said. “Though it might have been harder if he hadn’t been transported out to the high school, and Rosalie hadn’t tried to hijack his eternity.”
Mom shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said. “But I still think you did a wonderful job. You’re going to be really good at this, you know.”
“Thanks.”
“Please tell me you’re going to keep it up. Once you get to Edmonton, I mean.”
“I might,” I said. “But let me think about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “As long as you let me know what you decide.”
“I will,” I said.
And I meant it.
JAMES AND I stayed two more weeks. At first we stayed because the cops needed us to help them tie up some loose ends. Then James was busy finishing his PI course, so I helped Mom clean up her backyard to get rid of some of the raspberry bushes that threatened to take over.
And then I tracked down Lucky, the old man who’d helped me get into the salvage yard.
“You gotta get that cough checked out,” I said, as I scooped him and the dog into the car, and drove them both to the hospital emergency. “It sounds like you have pneumonia. I’ll look after your dog, if you have to stay in for a few days.”
The old man smiled and patted my hand. “I’m lucky we found each other.”
“So am I,” I said, and then he disappeared into the Emergency wing.
“If anything happens to that old man,” I said to the little dog quivering in the back seat, “you better learn to love my mom and a dog named Millie. Because I can’t keep you.”
I didn’t have to.
Lucky scuffled out of the hospital two hours later and scooped the little dog up into his arms.
“You all right?” I asked.
He shook a big container of pills. “It is pneumonia,” he said. “But the walking-around kind. Take me to my cart, will ya? It’s nearly time for our rounds.”
So I did.
JAMES FINISHED HIS course, and decided to take his test while we were still in Fort McMurray. He passed with flying colours.
“I guess they are more lenient here,” he said when he flashed me his test with 97% scrawled across the top in red pen, and grinned at me delightedly.
“I don’t think lenience has a thing to do with it,” I told him. “You’re smart. Quite possibly brilliant.”
I pulled out a bottle of cheap champagne I’d picked up, and popped the cork.
“Let’s celebrate,” I said. “You passing your course and getting your PI licence. And me surviving, well, everything.”
I’d never had champagne before, but I had to say, even the cheap kind tasted pretty good.
THE MINOR MIRACLES continued. Rhonda and I talked about Mom and her situation, and it was decent.
“Are you going to need some help looking after her?” I asked when she came over to drop off laundry for Mom. “Maybe we can get her a nurse or something, because we’re going to leave in a couple of days, and you’ll be on your own again.”
“I know,” she said. She set the laundry on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch. “You staying these two weeks gave me a chance to catch my breath. And Dad’s going to help as much as Mom will let him—I finally feel like I can do it. You know?”
“I know.” I looked down at the laundry, and then up at her. “Any chance you can cut her a bit of slack about the whole ghost thing? I think she might be finished with it . . .”
Rhonda laughed. I was surprised at how at ease she sounded. “I don’t think she’s ever going to be finished with the ghosts, Marie. Just like you. But you know, it doesn’t bother me the way it did before. Maybe because, this time, it actually helped one of us. Makes me think we might just be as important to her as the ghosts always seemed to be.”
“I think we always were,” I muttered. “She loves you all, you know.”
“I know. And she loves you. Just like I do.” She smiled. “You do know that, right?”
I blinked, and she laughed and threw her arms around me and hugged me. Just like a sister would. After a moment, I returned the hug. “Yeah, I know it,” I said.
“Well, just don’t forget it,” Rhonda said. “After all, we’re sisters forever.”
For that moment, forever didn’t feel quite long enough.
AS JAMES AND I were packing the car on the last day, he looked down in the dumps.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “I know my family’s all wonderful now and everything, but we have to get home. You have a business to run, and I have to try to pull my life together. Remember?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s not that. I keep thinking about how my uncle used me. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to forgive myself. Or him.”
I thought about my family, who were all inside Mom’s little trailer, making a farewell feast for the two of us. Even my dad was there, sitting on the couch with Mom, watching an old black and white movie.
“Trust me,” I said. “You’ll figure out how to forgive both your uncle and yourself. Eventually. He had a reason for doing what he did. I’m sure of it.”
“And if I can’t figure it out on my own?” he asked.
“Then I’ll help you,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”
He laughed and hugged me, and if Mom hadn’t toddled out of her trailer, wondering if we were ever coming in for the lunch Rhonda had made, it might have gone even further than that. But she did, and it didn’t.
And I was all right with it. We had time. All the time in the world.
AFTER WE FINISHED the meal, Rhonda and James and I did the dishes while the kids played in the backyard and Mom and Dad, with Millie between them, parked on the couch, watching the end of the movie.
“You are so lucky,” Rhonda said to me as James dried the dishes and we wiped down the counters and table. “Jasper won’t ever help me in the kitchens.”
“You tell her, Rhonda,” James said, and we all laughed. I tossed my dishcloth into Mom’s little sink, and suddenly, the final meal of our Fort McMurray trip was done and it was time for us to go.
Mom had fallen asleep, tucked between Dad and Millie.
“Tell her I said goodbye,” I whispered to Dad.
“I will,” he said. “It was good to see you, girl. Safe trip.”
I leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. “It was good to see you, too, Dad.”
He glanced up at me, over Mom’s grey wig. “Would it be all right if I call you sometimes? You know, when you get to Edmonton?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’d be fine.”
And I meant it.
Rhonda walked us out to the car. She grabbed James and gave him a huge, warm hug. “Turn her into an honest woman,” she said, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Then she turned to me. “Do you think you’ll be able to make it for Christmas?”
I thought about Mom. How much better she looked. How she was hanging around with Dad. Things really were better here. I grabbed her in a quick hug that surprised me as much as it did her.
“Christmas sounds good,” I said.
Rhonda sniffled and sounded like she was going to cry as I waved through the passenger window at her. She waved back, and then the Volvo turned the corner, and I couldn’t see her or Mom’s little trailer with the blood red door any longer.
I let myself have a weepy moment. I tried to be quiet about it, but when I wasn’t, James was a real gentleman and didn’t say a thing. Just handed me a tissue, and kept driving.
“JUST FIVE HOURS,” James said, when we hit Highway 63. “And we’ll be home.”
“I can hardly believe it,” I said, and sipped my cup of the coffee we’d picked up on the way out of town. I was surprised to realize that it didn’t taste quite as good to me as Mom’s instant coffee. Especially when James doped it for me. He was some kind of coffee guru. He really was.
The miles rolled by, and when the traffic clotted and slowed around us—as it inevitably did on that stretch of highway—I looked at James, seriously.
“Please be careful. I want us to both make it home safe and sound.” I tapped him on the arm. “Understand? Safe and sound.”
“Got it,” he said, and he didn’t even smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll get us home. I promise.”
I didn’t say that beca
use I didn’t trust James’s driving, because I did. What I really didn’t want was for that stupid highway to let death stick its nose in our lives again. I wanted everything to be normal, even if it was just for a little while. Even if it was just until we got home.
But hey, I hardly ever got what I wanted, now did I?
WE WERE ONE hour away from Edmonton when my cell phone jingled. It was Rhonda, and I should have been irritated that she was checking up on us before we had a chance to get home, but I just answered the cell with a laugh.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s not Christmas yet, is it?”
She didn’t answer. I could hear her breathing, but that was all.
“Oh, come on, Rhonda,” I said. “Even you have to admit that was funny!”
“Marie.” Her voice was a broken whisper that froze me to the very bone. “Can you come back? It’s Mom.”
It was funny. Even when I knew it was coming, I couldn’t face death. I couldn’t believe it had actually caught up with me, even when it had.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.
James glanced at me, but I couldn’t meet his eye. Couldn’t do anything but clutch that damned cell phone so hard it was amazing it didn’t snap to pieces in my fingers, and wait for my sister to answer.
“What’s wrong?” I asked again. “Tell me.”
“She—she didn’t make it,” Rhonda said. Then she sobbed. “Can you come back? Please? I don’t think I can do this by myself.”
“Yep.” My voice sounded dry as dust, and I finally made eye contact with James. “We can be there in four hours.”
James nodded once, turned the car around, and headed back up Highway 63. Back to Fort McMurray.
“Watch for us,” I said to my sister. “We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
And we were.
THE END
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