The Piper

by Lynn Hightower

  Hugh and Olivia had instituted the policy of same rules, both households, had sat down together all three of them to explain all boundaries.

  Teddy had responded by ignoring her work at school – going so far as to stand on the back of the toilets in the girls’ restroom after lunch every day, folding her arms and refusing to come out, much less do her school work. Teddy was doing things that made Olivia want to laugh and punish her at the same time. My outrageous daughter was what Hugh called her now. But even when Olivia and Hugh laughed, they knew it wasn’t good.

  ‘Teddy, take Winston out, okay? He needs to pee.’ Olivia waited till the sliding doors opened and closed. ‘Amelia, what’s wrong? You’ve smeared all your mascara off. And there are wads of tissues hanging out of your pocket.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve known you too long,’ Amelia said. Olivia was famous for leaving a trail of tissues wherever she went. ‘And couldn’t I just be sad because my best friend is moving all the way to Tennessee? Or tired because you called and woke me up in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Why don’t you just set that shit on fire and tell me what’s up?’

  Amelia tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Marianne Butler. More fluid in the lungs and Alexis and Jack won’t let her go. They want another round of chemo while Marianne gags like a baby fish on a hook. Don’t ever let anybody tell you drowning is painless.’

  Olivia squeezed Amelia’s hand. Little Marianne Butler, in and out of hospitals with leukemia for most of the three short years of her life, haunted Amelia in her dreams.

  Amelia and Marianne’s mother, Alexis, had been college room-mates, together during all the major milestones, graduation, Alexis marrying Jack, Amelia opening her practice. Four years ago they’d gone to Santa Barbara for a couples weekend, Alexis and Jack, Amelia and Brandon, for a miraculous forty-eight hours that ended with two unplanned events – Amelia and Brandon in a spontaneous wedding resulting in a marriage that lasted eighteen months, and the conception of Marianne.

  Olivia had learned to slough off the little geysers of envy when she saw Amelia and Alexis together. A friendship, lasting through the years, stronger than your average marriage, was not an option for a nomad like herself.

  ‘Look, let’s skip dinner. You go ahead to the hospital, Amel.’

  ‘I can’t do it anymore, Livie. I won’t. Alexis is a brick wall when I try and talk to her about it, Jack is a zombie, and the oncology team is dead set on prolonging the agony – there’s nothing I can do. Let’s go have dinner and a drink. Or two.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘We absolutely have to talk. I’ve been googling all afternoon. I’ll tell you over dinner, Livie, but there are entire websites devoted to this stuff.’

  ‘This stuff?’

  ‘Phone calls from the dead.’

  THREE

  The Wolf Creek Grill specialized in hamburgers grilled with melted blue cheese, portabella mushroom sandwiches, wood fired pizzas and house brewed beer. Amelia ordered the Asian Sesame chicken salad, which came with a side of fruit, and Olivia was not surprised that Amelia had been continuously stealing shoestring French fries off Olivia’s plate. Olivia had ordered the Swiss mushroom burger, and set the bun aside, eating onions, mushrooms and meat. She was not in favor of salad for dinner, and did not care for any fruit except mangoes. She was happy to share her fries. She would have preferred mashed potatoes, because mashed potatoes, mustard sandwiches, and bread and butter pickles were her particular comfort foods, but the Wolf Creek Grill had none of these. It was hard to find bread and butter pickles anywhere but the south.

  ‘Mama?’ Teddy said. ‘Ashley just texted me. She and Amber are going to the Marble Slab. Can I go over there too? Like a goodbye thing? I’ve had all I want to eat, I promise, I’m full, and it’s right next door, so I’ll be safe.’

  Olivia glanced at Teddy’s cheeseburger. Three bites, maybe four, but little ones. She’d made inroads on the fries. ‘Okay, but you stay there, in the ice cream shop, till I come over and get you. Don’t go anywhere else. Here.’ Olivia dug her wallet out of her purse. ‘Here’s five bucks.’

  Amelia shuddered. ‘Five dollars for ice cream. The world has gone mad. And while we’re digging in purses, let me give you your mail.’

  ‘Amelia, I’ll be right back. I just need to walk Teddy—’

  ‘Mother. I can walk next door by myself.’ Teddy stuck the money in her pocket, and headed out, then turned back. ‘Thank you, Mama.’

  Olivia watched Teddy walk out of the restaurant, craning her neck a little when her daughter went out the door.

  ‘Southern children are so polite.’

  ‘Only if you beat them.’

  ‘Seriously. How is she doing?’

  ‘Up and down. More down than up. Nothing I can’t handle.’ Olivia did not mention that she was unable to sleep anymore, and lay awake at night, doubting every decision she’d made. Should she and Hugh have stayed married no matter what? Would moving yet again make things better or worse? There was no question that what Teddy needed was stability. To live in one place, to go to one school, to end the constant moving that was an integral part of life with Hugh. Neither she nor Teddy could get any traction in their lives living this way.

  ‘She’s struggling, Amelia, and it breaks my heart. She wants to be good, but something inside her wants to be bad too. I hate that term, acting out, but it’s exactly what she’s doing. So. She needs stability and she needs limits, and that’s what she’s going to get.’

  ‘Stability?’ Amelia said. ‘You’re moving again.’

  ‘One last move. So we can go home and stay put.’

  Amelia set a small stack of envelopes on the table by Olivia’s plate and took a sip of her Grey Wolf Ale. ‘Just keep in mind that things may get worse before they get better. And by the way, when did you cave and let her acquire the cell phone? I mean, come on, Livie, she’s eight.’

  ‘Lose the pursed lips. It was a gift from Hugh.’

  ‘You’re familiar with the no word?’

  ‘Yes, Amel, and he asked me first, we talked about it. Teddy’s had a lot of separation anxiety since the divorce. You know how connected she is to her dad. It’s supposed to be a special phone just to talk to Hugh.’ Olivia shrugged. ‘But yes, you’re right, it’s starting to get out of hand. Suddenly her friends are texting from their mothers’ or siblings’ phones, and it’s going off all the time. I’m going to let it be until we get settled in Knoxville, then slowly phase it out.’

  ‘That’s what they all say, but Pandora couldn’t put it back in the box.’ Amelia looked over Olivia’s shoulder and tilted her head, pointing toward the television mounted in the corner of the bar. ‘Will you look at that. Talk about karma. That couldn’t be a coincidence.’

  Olivia twisted to see the screen – football players in white and orange against blue and white. The first game of the season, a grudge match between the University of Tennessee and Western Kentucky State.

  ‘Don’t go all woo woo on me, Amel, I’m pretty shook up. I recognized his voice. That was definitely my brother last night on the phone. My brother, deceased.’

  ‘Supposedly this is an actual known phenomena.’

  ‘You got this off the Internet, remember.’

  ‘You’re the one who got the call. You look pale, Olivia.’

  ‘Pale or sunburned. There’s no in between for me.’ Olivia leaned back in the booth and stuck her feet out. She was short so they didn’t go very far. Her feet were very small.

  Amelia leaned across the table. ‘Evidently, it’s happened to a lot of other people. There are some very distinctive patterns on how this . . . manifestation works.’

  ‘I love how you make it sound like science.’

  A waiter with lovingly spiked hair and a honey mellow voice offered refills on the beer, and a box for Teddy’s burger.

  ‘We’ll let the burger go,’ Olivia said. ‘But the beers are a really good thing.’

  The waiter hesitated, e
yebrows scrunching.

  ‘She means yes,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Thank God I’m going home where I’m not going to need a translator.’

  ‘Hey, they just don’t get the music of your speech.’

  Olivia began shredding her napkin. ‘So what are these patterns on the calls from the dead?’

  Amelia leaned across the table. ‘They divide it up into categories.’

  ‘Who is they?’

  ‘I don’t know. The Internet people. First up are the calls that come right after the person dies – eight hours to two days. Usually before they’re even buried. And the one who gets the call – most of the time, they have no idea the caller is dead. They only find out later. Think about that.’

  ‘I think it’s creepy.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just sweet. I wonder if children ever call people after they die.’

  ‘What do they say? In these calls?’

  ‘Most of the time just hello, I love you, I’m okay.’ Amelia cocked her head. ‘Now, the next group are the calls that come in the first week after the death. After that – now get this.’ Amelia jabbed her finger on the table. ‘Nobody ever gets a call in the time period between eight and thirty days after the person has died. Your brother has been dead how long?’

  ‘Two months, give or take.’

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘That’s weird. That time period of silence. So why is that?’

  Amelia waggled a hand. ‘No telling. But after that, twenty-two percent of the calls come between two and six months after death. Just like yours.’

  ‘They actually have percents?’

  ‘I think your brother’s call would fall into the category of a crisis call. That runs to twenty-seven percent.’

  ‘A crisis phone call? The crisis is over. Chris is dead.’

  ‘Not him. You.’

  ‘I’m not in a crisis. That’s all done.’

  Amelia put out her hand. ‘Look, I—’ The waiter arrived with the beers, and Amelia paused until he was out of earshot. ‘Don’t take this wrong, and get that mouth of yours all fired up. But maybe this whole thing is some kind of stress reaction. You haven’t slept for months, Liv. Sleep deprivation causes all kinds of . . . reactions. And no wonder. You almost lost everything when you got laid off.’

  Olivia made finger marks on the condensation of her glass. So Amelia had noticed when the car disappeared. She figured people did notice these things, but were too polite to bring it up. In the last few months the thought of being homeless had joined her list of lifetime fears, which included drowning, earthworms and being buried alive. If it hadn’t been for Hugh giving her his battered up Jeep that he kept for off-roading, she’d have had nothing to drive, a virtual death sentence in California.

  A prince among exes. What was that thing he’d told her? That you take care of your child by taking care of her mother. She’d been warned by at least two girlfriends that men were nice like that during the separation if they were hoping you’d change your mind, but to watch out when things went to court.

  ‘It worked out, though, Amel. I sold the house. I’m taking a new job back in Knoxville, and that’s like a dream come true. I’ll be the rainmaker, the broker, building up my own business instead of working in the back office because I move all the time. I’m going home and I’m going to stay put. I’m happier now than I’ve been in years.’

  ‘But it’s been hell for you, Livie. And this whole time you’re worried sick about your brother in Tennessee, who is clearly in the middle of some kind of psychological meltdown. How many pounds did he lose before he died?’

  ‘Sixty. At least.’

  ‘Acting weird, not sleeping, making his wife and daughters move out of the house. All that worry, coming just a year after you and Hugh got divorced.’ Amelia sat back in the booth. ‘Still here, Liv?’

  ‘You’re saying I imagined it.’

  ‘You said you were asleep. Maybe it was part of a dream.’

  Olivia flipped her cell phone open and texted over to incoming calls. ‘Is this a dream?’

  Amelia took the phone, and pulled the glasses up on the chain, using them like a magnifying glass to study the screen. ‘Are these things getting smaller, or am I just getting . . . Jesus, Liv. Twelve twelve p.m. exactly, just like you said. But there’s no number here. It says voice mailbox.’

  ‘I don’t think they have a category for ghost.’

  ‘So okay, then, maybe the crisis is now, Livie.’

  Olivia put her elbows on the table, avoiding a smear of catsup next to Teddy’s plate. ‘My take is he was trying to tell me something about my sister. He said The Mister Man. I think maybe it was just a . . . a sort of guilt call. Making amends. He said something about it being his fault, and that it was okay he died, because he paid the piper. Maybe he was just reassuring me about that SUNDS thing. You know damn well I’ve been wondering if it wasn’t a suicide.’

  ‘It was a pretty weird diagnosis for the coroner to make. SUNDS is a pretty fucking rare diagnosis. The general consensus is it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘So maybe that’s why he called, because it didn’t make sense. He wanted to reassure me. To tell me he didn’t kill himself. What is it, Amelia? You’ve got that look.’

  ‘No look.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Well, okay, but be logical here, Livie. If he didn’t kill himself, why does he feel guilty? Why does he need to make amends?’

  ‘He always felt guilty. About Emily.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘God only knows. We all did, a little bit.’

  ‘Could Chris have had anything to do with it?’

  ‘Hell no, Amel. He was seventeen. He was in Louisville, Kentucky on an overnight trip with the wrestling team, some kind of national competition, he was totally absorbed in that.’

  ‘And they never found out anything? About what happened to your sister?’

  ‘Nothing. My mom and dad were out with friends, playing bridge. They called to check on us a little after eleven. Emily was babysitting, I was five and she was fifteen. I was asleep on the couch, and she told my dad she was taking the dog, Hunter, outside for his late night wee wee, and then she would tuck me into bed. My parents get home and there I am on the couch in my little jammies, sound asleep. The back door is unlocked, the gate is open in the backyard, and Emily and Hunter are gone. Both of them. And Hunter was no ordinary dog. He was a German shepherd, and very protective. People were scared of him. So they figured she took him out like she said, and never made it back in the house. And both of them disappeared. Just like they say. Without a trace.’

  Amelia had heard it all before but she listened as if for the first time.

  ‘We named him The Mister Man – whoever it was who took Emily. That’s what Chris and I always called him. And that’s what he said in the call. To watch out for The Mister Man. You know, that’s actually strange.’

  ‘The whole thing is strange.’

  ‘No, I mean, if you saw a picture of my brother after it happened. Well, all of us. We looked . . . sad. But Chris, he’d been this kind of hefty guy, I mean, he was on the wrestling team and he was big boned and bulked up. But after Emily disappeared he started losing weight, just like he did this last year. If you look at pictures, before and after, you can’t even recognize him. Emily was gone three years before he stopped looking like he’d spent his life in some kind of concentration camp.’

  ‘Didn’t you say that Chris said he wanted to warn you?’

  ‘There was a lot of static, Amel, it was hard to understand. Maybe I heard it wrong.’

  ‘Maybe you did. They did mention that, on the website. Bad connections, and sometimes the sound of bells.’

  ‘Bells? Really? I heard that. Like wind chimes, but a long way off.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if it was your brother, it was a long way off. It’s just—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t help but wonder what he meant by warn.’

  FOUR
>
  No one was expecting them, when Olivia and Teddy took the I-75 split and headed north into Knoxville, one day ahead of schedule, arriving in that last magnificent blaze of sunlight and breezy coolness that comes at the end of fading summer days. For Olivia, it was a moment. She had been homesick for such a long time.

  Back in the day, Olivia had left home willingly, unaware how hard it would be to get back. Hugh’s work in the manufacturing management of anything metallic and noisy led them to more places than Olivia could remember, the highlights being Fort Smith, Arkansas, Madison, Wisconsin, a short stint on the outskirts of Memphis, followed by a living hell called Endicott, New York.

  Hugh had talked a lot about the work ethic of Americans, the only people in the world who dropped family, friends and homes without a second thought, moving regularly and willingly for the sake of a job. He talked about it like it was a religion, but Olivia had come to the conclusion that this corporate culture was a scam. In the early days, Hugh had changed jobs at the beckoning dollar signs dangled by the headhunters, but more and more lately he’d been skewered by the dreaded work force reduction – the corporate term for we’re going to fuck up your life.

  California had just been another stop along the way.

  Olivia had planned to spend a night in Memphis, but the city had been dark, and hot, and industrial along the interstate. They were ahead of schedule, and Olivia was on a roll. Teddy and Winston had been deep asleep, and Olivia, restless and anxious to be home, fueled by coffee and sugared gummy worms bought just outside of Little Rock, had blown through Memphis on an impulse thinking she would stop somewhere along the way. She made it into Nashville at three a.m., too close to falling asleep behind the wheel to get the rest of the way home. They took a room and she slept past noon, not getting up and running until three, missing the hotel checkout time, which meant an extra night’s charge.

  They’d stopped at a McDonald’s in Harriman, no longer noticing the rank long car trip odor of fast food and sweaty socks, overlaid with the whangy aroma that had permeated the cab since Winston had tangled with a pimento cheese sandwich and lost. It was cool out, a relief from the hot days of the trip, and they opened the doors to the breeze, and Olivia ate French fries, and drank a big Coke, Winston had his own order of Chicken McNuggets, and Teddy ate a cheeseburger and kicked her heels against the seat. The heat would be back, likely tomorrow, today was just a tease, like one of the crisp cool days they’d get around Halloween. Olivia had that good fall feeling – fresh starts, new things, a little hum of excitement because she was almost home.